While
Rajeev2004blogspot have changed their opinion based on a
Rediff article of Nov 26 that says the Thai ship hijacked by pirates was (no more than?) a Thai ship, DailyPioneer reports:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->FRONT PAGE | Thursday, November 27, 2008 | Email | Print |
<b>
India trashes Thai claim
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
Somalia operation was against pirates and within rules of engagement: Navy</b>
As a major controversy erupted over the sinking of a 'pirate' ship by the Indian Navy in the Gulf of Aden on November 18, Thailand on Wednesday said the vessel belonged to a Thai company while India justified action against the ship.
The Indian Navy asserted that it had acted against a 'pirate' ship, saying the operation was well within the "rules of engagement". Defence Minister AK Antony said in Kochi that he had read the news reports and would look into it.
The Indian Navy warship INS Tabar had destroyed a "mother" vessel of the sea robbers in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden after the buccaneers fired at the ship on the night of November 18. The warship also chased two speed boats, which took off from the vessel, and found one of them abandoned without anyone on board. The other boat carrying pirates managed to escape under the cover of darkness.
Defending the action, Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said on Wednesday that the "use of force was unavoidable." <b>Stating that his men followed the "rules of engagement" as the Indian Navy ship was threatened after the pirates fired on it, Mehta said, "All actions to hijack a ship or piracy will be pre-empted by the Navy on the high seas."</b>
Maintaining that the fire-fight took place long after the vessel was hijacked, the Navy chief said, "It is always difficult to take action once a ship is hijacked as the lives of crew are also at stake."
The Indian Navy officials also said the action was justified as the vessel at that point of time was under the command of pirates. The Thai ownership did not change the situation, they added.
Refuting the Thai company's claim that there was crew on board the sunken ship, they said the pirates would have used them as hostages and human shield. They also said the explosions which took place on the vessel after it was hit by the Indian Navy could only have been caused by explosives and ammunition and the INS Tabar saw many armed pirates on the vessel before the firing commenced.
The Thailand foreign ministry issued a note verbale to the Indian embassy in Bangkok, asking for certain "clarifications" over the incident. The note verbale was issued after a Thai company, Sirichai Fisheries, said on Tuesday that the sunken ship belonged to it and not to pirates. Moreover, the company claimed that there were 15 or 16 crew members on board the "Ekawat Nava " and there was no information about 14 of them.
The company reportedly identified its ship when one of the crew, who managed to jump out of the ship after it came under fire, was rescued after five days in the sea and narrated the incident. The Indian Navy, however, said here on Wednesday that there was no collateral damage.
The Kuala Lumpur-based International Maritime Bureau, which keeps a record of piracy on the high seas, confirmed that the vessel belonged to the Thai fishing company. It learnt about the hijacking and piracy around 8 am on November 18, it added. The Indian Navy intercepted the vessel around 7 pm that day and fired at the vessel around four hours later after numerous warnings to the vessel to stop for investigation went unheeded.
The Thailand Government's communication to India referred to media reports suggesting that out of several of its nationals on board the fishing trawler, five had gone missing after the operation by the INS Tabar and sought details from New Delhi in this regard.
Reacting to the reports, Indian Navy spokesman Commander Nirad Sinha said that "as far as we are India trashes Thai claim concerned, we acted against a pirate ship on the high seas". Giving details of the operation on November 18, the spokesman said the <b>INS Tabar had detected a suspect ship on the high seas and asked it to stop.
"It, however, continued to move while threatening to blow the vessel and the warship. We observed people with guns on the deck. They kept threatening us and fired. Our action was in response to their firing," the spokesman said.</b>
"The kind of explosives and ammunition, which was there on the vessel, proved that it was being held by pirates," Sinha said, adding, "We are convinced that we acted against pirates on the high seas." As regards reports that there were about 14 people on board who had died, the spokesman said the INS Tabar found no bodies.
Experts connected with the shipping industry also did not rule out the angle of insurance claim as a ship hijacked by pirates was entitled to claim.
Meanwhile, Antony said in Kochi that the Indian Navy was doing a commendable job to check the pirates from hijacking ships off Somalian coast, reports PTI.
Replying to a query on reports that INS Tabar had sunk a Thailand fishing vessel, taking it for a pirate mother ship in the Gulf of Aden, Antony said, "I have read about it in the newspapers and will look into the matter."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><b>The following is also Somali pirate news, all from this same month of November!</b>
Somali pirates are no joke, they're attacking up and down the region at this time.
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Somali pirates seize Japanese cargo ship
November 16, 2008, 6:09 pm
SEOUL (Reuters) - A Japanese cargo ship was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia late on Saturday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Seoul's foreign ministry as saying on Sunday.
The cargo ship was carrying 23 sailors, including five South Koreans, Yonhap said.
Details on the pirates and the safety of the sailors were not immediately available, it said.
Heavily armed Somali gunmen have seized more than 30 vessels so far this year, making the busy shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden the most dangerous in the world.
South Korea is considering dispatching a naval ship to the area to protect its vessels and sailors.
(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Somalians should stay away from inconvertible countries like Thailand, Japan and India.
But this is just fine: Somalians seizing Saudi, Iranian and Yemeni vessels. Woohoo.
But slaver islamis get angry at enslaved islamis:
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Somali pirates head out to sea after threats
8:29AM Wednesday Nov 26, 2008
Pirates have moved the seized Sirius Star further out to sea after threats from Islamic extremists. Photo / AP
<b>MOGADISHU - Pirates have moved a Saudi supertanker loaded with crude oil farther out to sea after an extremist Islamic group vowed to fight the bandits because they seized a Muslim-owned vessel, witnesses said.</b>
(African Islamis in trouble for having hijacked vessel of the 'superior' racist Arabislamis. Racist jeebusjehovallah is always angry at Africans and according to mad christoislamic theology/doctrine, the scary gawd put the curse of Ham and hence slavery and racism on them. The solution is to revert to African Traditions and be free again.)
Somali pirates seized the Sirius Star on Nov. 15 in their most audacious hijacking to date off the coast of this lawless country. The vessel is carrying two million barrels of crude oil worth about $100 million.
The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that they contacted a pirate on board the Sirius Star who said the ship owner has not contacted them and that they have not yet set a ransom.
The BBC said the pirate identified himself as Daybad.
"We captured the ship for ransom, of course, but we don't have anybody reliable to talk to directly about it," Daybad said. The captain of the Sirius Star, Marek Nishky, told the BBC he and his crew have no complaint and have been allowed to talk to their families.
On Friday, al-Shabab - the Islamic group at the centre of Somalia's deadly insurgency - vowed to fight the pirates.
Somali clan elder Abdisalan Khalif Ahmed said the ship moved Sunday to about 45 kilometres from its earlier location, putting it about 50 kilometres off the coast of the coastal village of Harardhere.
"Perhaps (the) pirates are afraid the Islamists in town will frustrate their efforts to resupply the ship," he said.
Yemen's government made latest hijacking announcement on Monday.
A security official in Yemen said on Tuesday that Somali pirates who hijacked the Yemeni cargo ship Adina in the Arabian Sea last week were asking for a $2 million ransom to release the ship. The cargo is construction material. The official asked not to be named because he is not allowed to speak to the media.
The police chief of Yemen's Hadramout province, Ahmed Mohammad al-Hamedi, said the ship is owned by a Yemeni company but is carrying a foreign flag, which he would not specify. He said there were three Yemenis, three Somalis and two Panamanians on board.
The Yemen ship was travelling between Mukalla, a port in southern Yemen, to the southern island of Suqutra, when it was hijacked.
Somalia, an impoverished nation caught up in an Islamic insurgency spearheaded by al-Shabab, has not had a functioning government since 1991.
There have been at least 96 pirate attacks so far this year in Somali waters, with 40 ships hijacked. Fifteen ships with nearly 300 crew are still in the hands of Somali pirates, who dock the hijacked vessels near the eastern and southern coast as they negotiate for ransom.
Shipping officials from around the world have called for a military blockade along Somalia's coast to intercept pirate vessels heading out to sea. The head of the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners, representing most of the world fleet, said that stronger naval action - including aerial support - was necessary to battle rampant piracy in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia.
But NATO, which has four warships off the coast of Somalia, rejected a blockade.
US Gen. John Craddock, NATO's supreme allied commander, said the alliance's mandate is solely to escort World Food Program ships to Somalia and to conduct anti-piracy patrols. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that a blockade of ports was "not contemplated by NATO."
In neighbouring Kenya, the head of US military operations in Africa said he had no evidence that Somali pirates are connected to al-Qaida, but said the allegations are "a concern we all would have."
<b>Western governments have expressed concern that some pirate ransoms - some $30 million this year alone - could end up in the hands of extremists with links to terror groups in Somalia.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->After Somali Pirates took the Saudi Arabian supertanker very recently and an Iranian chartered ship shortly thereafter, now a Yemeni cargo ship in the following. I don't know why islamaniac dar-ul-islams of Arabia, Iran and Yemen are complaining: the African faithful are only getting their money back for centuries of slavery and looting at the hands of the faithful from the northern islamic lands:
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Somali pirates hijack another ship
Reuters | Tuesday, 25 November 2008
<b>Somali pirates have hijacked a Yemen cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, the day after pirates who seized a Saudi supertanker cut their ransom demand to $15 million.</b>
Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, identified the Yemeni vessel as the MV Amani. No other details were immediately available.
<b>Word of the latest attack at sea came 10 days after gunmen from Somalia seized a Saudi supertanker in the largest hijacking in maritime history.</b>
The Nov. 15 capture of the Sirius Star â with $100 million of oil and 25 crew members from Britain, Poland, Croatia, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines â focused world attention on rampant piracy off the failed Horn of Africa state.
Scores of attacks this year have brought millions of dollars of ransom payments, hiked up shipping insurance costs, sent foreign navies rushing to the area, and left about a dozen boats with more than 200 hostages still in pirates' hands.
(West is unable to do anything about it. No wonder they don't believe Indian Navy could have done something....)
<b>Following the hijack of an Iranian-chartered ship last week, Iran's deputy transport minister was quoted as saying Tehran could use force if necessary against pirates.</b>
"Iran's view is that such issues should be confronted strongly," Deputy Transport Minister Ali Taheri was quoted as saying by the Ebtekar daily.
The pirate gang had originally been quoted as wanting $25 million (NZ$46.86 Million) to release the Sirius Star, which was captured far from Somali waters about 450 nautical miles southeast of Kenya.
But Islamist spokesman Abdirahim Isse Adow, whose men are in the Haradheere area where the ship is being held offshore, said the demand went down. "Middlemen have given a $15 million ransom figure for the Saudi ship. That is the issue now," he said.
Mwangura said his sources were confirming a reduced $15 million demand.
However, a pirate on board the ship told the BBC by telephone that "no company" had yet made contact with the hijackers, only people claiming to be intermediaries.
"These are people who cannot be trusted. We don't want to make contact with anyone who we can't trust," said the pirate, who called himself Daybad.
"We captured the ship for ransom, of course, but we don't have anybody reliable to talk to directly about it." He said that once real negotiations began they would seek "the usual asking price" but denied reports that they had been asking for a ransom of up to $25 million.
"That doesn't exist, there is nothing of the sort and we are warning radio stations and other people about broadcasting these unreliable stories," he said.
Residents say pirates have taken the ship further out to about 100km off the coast of central Somalia after Islamist militia poured into the town in search of the pirates.
Adow, who represents the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), says his men are out to confront the pirates and free the Sirius Star because it is a "Muslim" ship. But residents say other Islamist militia want a cut of any ransom payment.
The pirate Daybad said the ship's crew were "fine" and had been allowed to contact their families, a fact also confirmed to the BBC by the Sirius Star's Polish captain.
"I would say there is not a reason for complaints," the captain said.
The capture of the ship has stirred up the small dusty harbour of Haradheere into a frenzy of activity, witnesses say, with armed men riding back and forth on cars all over town.
<b>The Islamists, who have been fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military allies for two years, denounce piracy in public. But analysts say some factions are taking a share of spoils and using pirates to enable weapons deliveries by sea.</b>
Senior Somali officials are also on the take from piracy, diplomats in the region say. The government denies that.
Piracy has flourished off Somalia thanks to chaos onshore. The nation of 9 million people has suffered perpetual civil conflict since 1991 when warlords toppled a dictator.
<b>More than a dozen foreign warships are in the area, though analysts say the range Somali pirates operate in are too vast to ever properly control.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is something almost delightful in reading about the exasperation of the western superpowers - with their big guns and big ships - to do anything against a band of Somali "third world" pirates:
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Somali pirates seize giant Saudi oil tanker
Updated at 8:36pm on 18 November 2008
<b>The United States navy says the hijacking of a giant Saudi oil tanker in the Indian Ocean by Somali pirates is unprecedented and marks a fundamental shift in their capabilities.</b>
The Sirius Star is carrying its full load of 2 million barrels - more than a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output. Its international crew of 25 is said to be unharmed. The ship is the biggest yet seized by Somali pirates.
It was attacked 800 kilometres off the coast of East Africa and is now on a course towards the port of Eyl in northern Somalia. It was sailing under the Liberian flag at the time.
<b>The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, says the pirates are well trained.
Attacks on shipping off the Horn of Africa and Kenya by pirates, who are mostly Somali, prompted foreign navies to send warships to the area this year.</b>
("They are well-trained" said US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, "Us US navies were outnumbered, outgunned, outmanned, outmanoevred, outflanked, outperformed, out-thought, .... It was like 10 against one - no no, a <i>Hundred</i> against one. Yeah, that was how it was. Else we would <i>really</i> have won you know..." Sure <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
Figures from the International Maritime Bureau show that attacks in the area - the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean off the African coast - made up a third of all piracy incidents worldwide in 2008.
In the first nine months of the year, 63 incidents were reported. As of 30 September, 12 ships remained captive and under negotiation, with more than 250 crew being held hostage.
The 330-metre ship is owned by the Saudi company Aramco and was built in South Korea's Daewoo shipyards. It made its maiden voyage in March 2008.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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Somali pirates transform villages into boomtowns
Thu, 20 Nov 2008 9:19p.m.
<b>Somalia's increasingly brazen pirates are building sprawling stone houses, cruising in luxury cars, marrying beautiful women - even hiring caterers to prepare Western-style food for their hostages.</b>
(Oooh. Someone's jealous. It's only unfair when the "Hamitics" do the looting, is it?)
And in an impoverished country where every public institution has crumbled, they have become heroes in the steamy coastal dens they operate from because they are the only real business in town.
(Well, keep pirating christoislamaniac vessels. But stay away from those of Hindu India and Buddhist Thailand and Shinto-Buddhist Japan.)
"The pirates depend on us, and we benefit from them," said Sahra Sheik Dahir, a shop owner in Harardhere, the nearest village to where a hijacked Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying $100 million in crude was anchored.
[...]
But in northern coastal towns like Harardhere, Eyl and Bossaso, the pirate economy is thriving thanks to the money pouring in from pirate ransoms that have reached $30 million this year alone.
"There are more shops and business is booming because of the piracy," said Sugule Dahir, who runs a clothing shop in Eyl. "Internet cafes and telephone shops have opened, and people are just happier than before."
<b>In Harardhere, residents came out in droves to celebrate as the looming oil ship came into focus this week off the country's lawless coast.</b>
Businessmen gathered cigarettes, food and cold bottles of orange soda, setting up kiosks for the pirates who come to shore to resupply almost daily.
<b>Dahir said she even started a layaway plan for them.</b>
<!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
"They always take things without paying and we put them into the book of debts," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Later, when they get the ransom money, they pay us a lot."
Residents make sure the pirates are well-stocked in khat, a popular narcotic leaf, and are not afraid to gouge a bit when it comes to the pirates' deep pockets.
"I can buy a packet of cigarettes for about $1 but I will charge the pirate $1.30," said Abdulqadir Omar, an Eyl resident.
While pirate villages used to have houses made of corrugated iron sheets, now, there are stately looking homes made of sturdy, white stones.
"Regardless of how the money is coming in, legally or illegally, I can say it has started a life in our town," said Shamso Moalim, a 36-year-old mother of five in Harardhere.
"Our children are not worrying about food now, and they go to Islamic schools in the morning and play soccer in the afternoon. They are happy."
(Like I said, these islamics can keep stealing the ships of the islamaniacs of Saudi Arabia and Yemen and Iran and it'll be just peachy by me.)
The attackers generally treat their hostages well in anticipation of a big payday, hiring caterers on shore to cook spaghetti, grilled fish and roasted meat that will appeal to Western palates.
And when the payday comes, the money sometimes literally falls from the sky.
Pirates say the ransom arrives in burlap sacks, sometimes dropped from buzzing helicopters, or in waterproof suitcases loaded onto skiffs in the roiling, shark-infested sea.
"The oldest man on the ship always takes the responsibility of collecting the money, because we see it as very risky, and he gets some extra payment for his service later," Aden Yusuf, a pirate in Eyl, told AP over VHF radio.
The pirates use money-counting machines - the same technology seen at foreign exchange bureaus worldwide - to ensure the cash is real. All payments are done in cash because Somalia has no functioning banking system.
"Getting this equipment is easy for us, we have business connections with people in Dubai, Nairobi, Djibouti and other areas," Yusuf said. "So we send them money and they send us what we want."
Despite a beefed-up international presence, the pirates continue to seize ships, moving further out to sea and demanding ever-larger ransoms. The pirates operate mostly from the semiautonomous Puntland region, where local lawmakers have been accused of helping them and taking a cut of the ransoms.
For the most part, however, the regional officials say they have no power to stop piracy.
Meanwhile, towns that once were eroded by years of poverty and chaos are now bustling with restaurants, Land Cruisers and Internet cafes. Residents also use their gains to buy generators - allowing full days of electricity, once an unimaginable luxury in Somalia.
<b>There are no reliable estimates of the number of pirates operating in Somalia, but they number in the thousands. And though the bandits do sometimes get nabbed, piracy is generally considered a sure bet to a better life.
NATO and the US Navy say they can not be everywhere, and American officials are urging ships to hire private security. Warships patrolling off Somalia have succeeded in stopping some pirate attacks. But military assaults to wrest back a ship are highly risky and, up to now, uncommon.</b>
(Would explain why AOL in Mudy's post above is sour that the Indian navy seemed to have stood their ground rather well - apparently an act only superior Amerikkkan forces are allowed to perform.)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Why is it daylight robbery only when Africans do it? What did the christoBritish do in Africa and India? What did the catholic christoBelgians do to Rwanda and Congo? How much money the islamaniacs of Arabia and christoterrorists of Europe and America made from the sale of African flesh. And now they have the gall to whine that a country in Africa is getting richer by illegally profiting from Amero-Eurabian and christoislamaniac money? Hahahahahah, Somalian piracy is a sure way to deal with christowestern-islamic double-standards. Good.
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> An army sepoy who retired before 1996 gets a monthly pension of Rs.3,670. But one who retired between 1996 and December 2005 gets Rs.4,680. A sepoy who retired after January 2006 gets Rs.8,700.