sexnews
Mecca V.I.P.
VIP
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2006
- Messages
- 4,015
- Points
- 38
Nairobi - Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a US-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard, the shipping company said.
The 17 000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesperson for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group AP Moller-Maersk.
In a statement, the company confirmed that the US-flagged vessel has 20 US nationals onboard.
Cmdr Jane Campbell, a spokesperson for the US Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said that it was the first pirate attack "involving US nationals and a US-flagged vessel in recent memory". She did not give an exact timeframe.
The US Navy confirmed that the ship was hijacked on Wednesday at 04:30 about 450km southeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia.
Sixth in a week
The ship is the sixth to be seized within a week, a rise that analysts attribute to a new strategy by Somali pirates who are operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.
US Navy spokesperson Lt Nathan Christensen said the closest US ship at the time of the hijacking was 550km away.
"The area the ship was taken in is not where the focus of our ships has been," Christensen told The Associated Press on the phone from the 5th Fleet's Mideast headquarters in Bahrain.
"The area we're patrolling is more than a million miles in size. Our ships cannot be everywhere at every time," Christensen said.
When asked how the US Navy plans to deal with this, Campbell said: "It's fair to say we are closely monitoring the situation, but we will not discuss nor speculate on current and future military operations."
Somali pirates are trained fighters who frequently dress in military fatigues and use speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades. Far out to sea, their speedboats operate from larger mother ships.
Million-dollar payouts
Most hijackings end with million-dollar payouts. Piracy is considered the biggest money-maker in Somalia, a country that has had no stable government for decades. Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think-tank Chatham House, said pirates took up to $80m in ransoms last year.
This is the second time that Somali pirates have seized a ship belonging to the privately held shipping group AP Moller-Maersk. In February 2008, the towing vessel Svitzer Korsakov from the AP Moller-Maersk company Svitzer was briefly seized by pirates.
Before this latest hijacking, Somali pirates were holding 14 vessels and about 200 crew members, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
- AP
The 17 000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesperson for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group AP Moller-Maersk.
In a statement, the company confirmed that the US-flagged vessel has 20 US nationals onboard.
Cmdr Jane Campbell, a spokesperson for the US Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said that it was the first pirate attack "involving US nationals and a US-flagged vessel in recent memory". She did not give an exact timeframe.
The US Navy confirmed that the ship was hijacked on Wednesday at 04:30 about 450km southeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia.
Sixth in a week
The ship is the sixth to be seized within a week, a rise that analysts attribute to a new strategy by Somali pirates who are operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.
US Navy spokesperson Lt Nathan Christensen said the closest US ship at the time of the hijacking was 550km away.
"The area the ship was taken in is not where the focus of our ships has been," Christensen told The Associated Press on the phone from the 5th Fleet's Mideast headquarters in Bahrain.
"The area we're patrolling is more than a million miles in size. Our ships cannot be everywhere at every time," Christensen said.
When asked how the US Navy plans to deal with this, Campbell said: "It's fair to say we are closely monitoring the situation, but we will not discuss nor speculate on current and future military operations."
Somali pirates are trained fighters who frequently dress in military fatigues and use speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades. Far out to sea, their speedboats operate from larger mother ships.
Million-dollar payouts
Most hijackings end with million-dollar payouts. Piracy is considered the biggest money-maker in Somalia, a country that has had no stable government for decades. Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think-tank Chatham House, said pirates took up to $80m in ransoms last year.
This is the second time that Somali pirates have seized a ship belonging to the privately held shipping group AP Moller-Maersk. In February 2008, the towing vessel Svitzer Korsakov from the AP Moller-Maersk company Svitzer was briefly seized by pirates.
Before this latest hijacking, Somali pirates were holding 14 vessels and about 200 crew members, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
- AP
