The Maersk Texas, a multi-purpose dry cargo ship, was attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Oman but guards repelled the attack, Maersk Line Ltd, a unit of Danish shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk , said on Wednesday - Reuters.
The Maersk Texas, a U.S.-flagged 19,592 deadweight tonnes (dwt) vessel, 148 metres (486 feet) long, came under attacked by pirates in skiffs at noon on Wednesday while transiting the Gulf of Oman, northeast of Fujairah, Maersk Line Ltd said.
Despite warnings, the pirates continued to approach the vessel and then fired upon it, after which a security team returned fire in accordance with U.S. Coast Guard rules of engagement, Maersk Line Ltd said.
"All hands onboard are safe and unharmed, and the vessel is proceeding on its voyage," Maersk Line Ltd said.
Iran's navy helped a U.S.-flagged cargo ship that was attacked by pirates off the United Arab Emirates, according to the vessel's owner, Maersk Line Ltd Safety4Sea.
The Iranian navy was the first to respond to the initial distress call from the Maersk Texas, Kevin Speers, senior director of marketing at Maersk Line, said by phone today. The vessel was attacked by several skiffs and armed guards on board returned fire, the company said in an earlier statement.
The incident happened at about noon northeast of Fujairah, the biggest port in the Middle East for refueling oil tankers, Maersk said. Iran's navy provided guidance to the crew of the Maersk Texas by radio, Speers said, declining to comment further pending a debriefing.
U.S., U.K., Chinese, French, German and Russian negotiators -- the so-called P5+1 group -- are meeting with Iranian officials in Baghdad today over the Persian Gulf country's nuclear program. The West suspects Iran's goal is to develop a weapon, while Iran contends it is for civilian purposes.
The European Union's counter-piracy force said it had reviewed the incident and determined there was "no case of piracy and it's a false alarm," Timo Lange, a spokesman for Northwood, England-based EU Navfor, said by phone today. EU Navfor operates nine warships and five maritime patrol aircraft as part of an operation combating piracy in the region, according to data on its website. Read more.
Iran's navy said Thursday it saved an American-flagged cargo ship that was being attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Oman - AFP.
An Iranian warship responded to a distress signal from the US-flagged Maersk Texas, a cargo ship of 150 metres (500 feet) and 14,000 tonnes, which was besieged by "several pirate boats," the navy said in a statement reported by the official IRNA news agency.
The cargo vessel "was saved by the navy of the Islamic Republic of Iran" on Wednesday, IRNA added.
The pirates "fled the scene as soon as they spotted the presence" of the warship.Maersk Texas "thanked the Iranian navy and sailed towards its destination safely," it added.
It was the first time the Iranian navy protected a US ship from pirates.
Maersk Line told AFP that its vessel, Maersk Texas, had "thwarted an attack by multiple pirate skiffs at noon local while transiting the Gulf of Oman, northeast of Fujairah" but denied it had been helped by the Iranian navy.
"Maersk Texas heard from the Iranian navy over radio to the initial distress call, but our vessel received no assistance from the Iranian navy," spokesman Kevin Steers said in an email sent to AFP in Washington.
"All hands onboard are safe and unharmed, and the vessel is proceeding on its voyage," he added.
Iran's navy keeps a presence in Gulf of Oman to protect cargo ships and transiting oil tankers and also defend the country against potential threats.
According to Iranian commanders, Iran's navy have carried out hundreds of anti-piracy operations, engaging in hundreds of armed clashes with pirates in the past three years.
The US navy patrolling the area have on a number of occasions rescued Iranian ships. The latest incident was in January when a US warship secured the release of 13 Iranian fishermen near the entrance to the Gulf who had been held captive by pirates for 45 days.
Southeast Asia
The Chinese state news media said Thursday [May 17] that North Korean gunmen plying the Yellow Sea had seized three Chinese fishing boats with 29 sailors aboard and were demanding a ransom for their release, says The New York Times.
Many of the details remained murky. The Beijing News said the boats were intercepted on May 8 in waters between China and North Korea. The report quoted one of the ships’ owners, Zhang Dechang, as saying that he had spoken by phone to a kidnapped sailor and that the captors were demanding about $189,000. Later reports said that had been reduced to about $142,000.
Another newspaper, The Global Times, quoted Mr. Zhang as saying that the attackers had brandished weapons and that the Chinese sailors had not resisted. “The captured fishermen have been locked in a small house, with no food to eat,” he said.
There were conflicting accounts about where the fishing boats originated. Most said they were from the city of Dalian in the northeast, but on Thursday an engineer from the Wenzhou Engineering Survey Institute, in the southern province of Zhejiang, sent messages on Twitter and on China’s Sina Weibo microblog service saying the boats were from his institute and asking the public to pressure Beijing to take action. Read more.
Six Somalis go on trial in a Paris court on Tuesday charged with taking the 30 crew of luxury sailing ship Le Ponant hostage in the emerald, pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden in 2008, reports France 24.
The six men, aged 25 to 50, face life in prison if convicted of kidnapping and theft as part of a gang after they were arrested in a French airborne operation on land in Somalia after a ransom was paid.
Only one admits to being a pirate, two admit to having been aboard the elegant 88-metre three-master but only to sell goats, cigarettes and the mild narcotic khat. The other three deny ever having set foot on the boat.
Le Ponant left the Seychelles on March 30, 2008 with 30 crew and no passengers on board, headed for Yemen where they were to take on passengers for a cruise.
On entering the notorious Gulf of Aden on April 4, the ship was boarded by pirates armed with assault rifles who forced the crew to head for Somalia.
A week later, the ship's owner, shipping giant CMA-CGM, paid a $2.15-million (1.7-million-euro) ransom, the crew was freed and the pirates fled into the lawless sands of Somalia.
France hunted the pirates through Somalia, eventually intercepting a 4x4 vehicle as it left a village, finding 200,000 dollars and weapons on board.
The car's six Somali passengers were arrested and Le Ponant crew members positively identified them as the pirates, although some crew have since said they are unsure of the hijackers' identities.
A total of 22 Somalis are being held by France in connection with four hostage-taking incidents.
Last year a Paris court jailed five pirates for between four and eight years for hijacking the Carre d'As in the Gulf of Aden in September 2008. A sixth alleged pirate was acquitted. Prosecutors are appealing those sentences as being too lenient.
A U.S. federal appeals court made clear on Wednesday that the definition of piracy includes violent attempts to hijack a ship, even if unsuccessful, and upheld convictions against five Somali pirates - Reuters (Africa).
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Virginia, upheld what federal prosecutors described as the first U.S. piracy convictions in 190 years, finding that an individual does not have to seize or rob a ship to commit piracy.
The court rejected a bid by five Somali men to overturn their convictions for attacking a U.S. Navy ship they mistook for a merchant vessel in 2010.
In April 2010, a small gang of Somali pirates fired on the USS Nicholas, which was lit to disguise itself as a merchant ship while combatting piracy off the coast of Africa.
Approaching on a skiff, the men fired AK-47s at the ship and launched rocket-propelled grenades into the air, but they never managed to board or seize the Navy frigate.
After a pursuit, naval forces captured the pirates and transported them back to the United States to face piracy and related charges. The men were found guilty and convicted to life in prison, the punishment for piracy, plus 80 years.
On appeal, the men argued that their actions did not meet the definition of piracy under the law. They pointed to the Supreme Court's 1820 decision in United States v. Smith, which defined piracy as robbery at sea.
But a unanimous three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit disagreed on Wednesday, citing two international treaties that define piracy to encompass acts of violence. Read more.
The Belgian shipowners’ association KBR has pressed to be allowed to use private armed guards onboard their ships, but “trigger-happy-cowboys” need not apply -Shiptalk.
The national government looks like accepting their demands, and an anti-piracy clause is expected to be added to Belgian legislation. This will require registration of armed guards and a formal reporting procedure.
It is expected that the legislation will be bolted on to existing rules for private security sector and the maritime element will be seen as a “special assignment”. There will be a special security activity; protecting persons and goods on ships from acts of piracy.
The association also made it very clear, that trigger-happy cowboys will not be welcome on Belgian vessels. In order to safeguard the quality of the guards used there will be psychological checks, as well as an examination of the integrity, familiarity with the rule of law, ability to restrain oneself and communication skills of any guards used.
Another key issue that the legislation will clarify is the relationship between the captain of the vessel and the guards.
The international community is intensifying its efforts to combat maritime piracy in Somalia. While the U.S. and the EU take additional military measures to eliminate strongholds of the pirates on the coast, private companies are creating their own guards to protect their cargo - Pravada. Under these conditions, Russia insists on taking more effective measures to prevent smuggling of weapons, allowing the sea robbers to be armed with the latest technology. Their arsenal includes machine guns, grenade launchers, "Stingers" and ship mines.
The problem of arms trafficking in Somalia has been acute for quite a long time. After the collapse of the dictatorial regime of Siad Barre in 1991, the country immerged in chaos. In 1992 the UN introduced an embargo on arms supplies to Somalia. However, it is impossible to control all possible ways of smuggling arms on the coast of the Horn of Africa.
Since 1990s, just about anyone has been supplying weapons into the country engulfed with a civil war. Islamists were actively assisted by Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Hezbollah. Some Western countries were also caught supplying arms to Somalia. For example, the UK signed a contract to sell a fairly large shipment of small arms. In 2009, after the lifting of the embargo, the U.S. began to actively arm the officially recognized government of Somalia. However, with a weak central government the weapons at any time can be sold to pirates or hijacked by extremists. Read more.
ReCAAP (Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia) and INTERTANKO formalised their co-operation by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) last week at INTERTANKO's Annual Event in Singapore - Safety4Sea. The MoU records a mutual understanding on joint cooperation in the area of information exchanges and establishes a platform for future collaboration. It was signed by Yoshihisa Endo, Executive Director of the ReCAAP ISC, and Capt Graham Westgarth, Chairman of INTERTANKO.
Signing this MoU marks yet another step forward in furthering the already close collaboration between on the one hand the Asian Initiatives to combat piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia, and on the other the international shipping associations representing the tanker community.
At the opening of the signing ceremony, Westgarth remarked, "With this MoU, INTERTANKO and ReCAAP establish a framework for working together in the future built on the strong and positive cooperation since ReCAAP's establishment in 2006".
"Such a Cooperative arrangement is one of the three pillars of ReCAAP," said Endo. "It allows a variety of organisations to collaborate and cooperate with the ReCAAP ISC in sharing information, and to participate in our capacity building programmes. We thank INTERTANKO for providing us with very strong and continuous support since 2009, as a co-organiser of the annual ReCAAP ISC Piracy and Sea Robbery Conferences for the past four years."
UK prime minister David Cameron has failed to ease concerns that seafarers could suffer as a result of plans to restrict ransom payments to Somali pirates - Nautilus International.
The maritime professionals’ union Nautilus International wrote to Mr Cameron to highlight fears that crew members could pay with their lives if governments go ahead with plans to outlaw ransom payments when ships are hijacked.
In a letter to the union, Mr Cameron says the UK is seeking to establish an international task force to examine ways to ‘bring about an end to the culture of ransom payments’. The PM said he hoped shipping industry partners would ‘engage fully’ with the task force and ‘offer constructive advice’ to it.
But Mr Dickinson said the PM’s response had not succeeded in easing the union’s concern that any moves to prevent payment of ransoms could jeopardise the safety of seafarers being held captive.
‘Whilst no one wants to see large sums of money being paid to pirates, politicians have failed to provide any realistic alternative,’ he added. ‘Ransoms are the only way in which we can ensure the safe return of seafarers, and it is clear from a number of cases that any attempt to frustrate the payment can put crew members into even greater danger.Read more.
Shipowners from all over Asia gathered to form a massive human SOS as a demonstration of their support for the international SOS SaveOurSeafarers campaign. The shipowners meetings this week in Australia for the 21st Asian Shipowners Forum (ASF) which had piracy at the top of their agenda - MarineLog.
In the last seven years, 62 seafarers have died as a result of pirate actions, and getting on for 4,000 have been held hostage on some 200 ships hijacked by Somali pirates. "These innocent seafarers, just doing their jobs to keep the world supplied with raw materials and finished goods, get hijacked and suffer extreme mental and physical torture. We call on the world to take note that these people are working and putting themselves on the front line for you," says Alastair Evitt, Chairman of SOS SaveOurSeafarers.
Noel Hart, Chairman of the 21st ASF, says, "The operation carried out by EU Naval Forces on May 15, 2012 to disrupt pirate supplies and bases on the Somali shoreline is welcome and has sent a clear signal that piracy cannot be tolerated. Blatant attacks on innocent ships and seafarers must be stopped."
The Seafarers Committee of the ASF expressed its strong concern at the trauma, agony, suffering and lasting psychological and physical effects on seafarers and their families caused by pirate attacks. Read more.
The jokes about peg legs, parrots and the Jolly Roger are long gone. Piracy is no laughing matter and these days it is the lawyers who would rule the waves The National.
According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), piracy is defined as "any illegal act of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship".
Further, UNCLOS states that "all states have an obligation to cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy and have universal jurisdiction on the high seas to seize pirate ships and aircraft, or a ship or aircraft taken by piracy and under the control of pirates, and arrest the persons and seize the property on board". The convention also allows states to "exercise a right of visit vis-a-vis ships suspected of being engaged in piracy".
What sounds relatively simple on paper is more complex in reality. An immediate difficulty is the phrase "high seas", which refers to international waters. Most attacks are carried out in Somali waters, but Somalia has no effective government on land, let alone at sea, though it is legally responsible for stopping pirate attacks.
In an attempt to resolve this, the UN Security Council has passed resolutions authorising certain nations, such as those involved in Operation Atalanta, to enter Somali waters to pursue suspected pirates.
The definition of piracy is also complicated by the law in individual countries. A US court last month convicted Mohammad Saaili Shibin, the hostage negotiator in a hijacking during which four Americans were killed. Because Shibin was operating on land, his lawyers argued - unsuccessfully - that he could not be a pirate, a question that still has to be tested on appeal.
Then there is the question of the pirates' human rights. British Royal Navy captains have been warned that captured Somalis might be able to claim asylum in Britain - even if convicted - because they could face torture or execution if sent home.
Hijacks:
Unsuccessful Attacks/Robberies (All regions):
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South China Sea - LATE Report | While a Malaysia-flagged tug boat, Budget 19, towing a barge Budget 29, at 0550 LT in position 01:11.73N - 103:30.17E, approximately 5.8 NM west-northwest of Raffles Lighthouse, off Singapore. Three robbers boarded the barge and escaped with some scrap metal and mooring ropes. No injuries to crew. Master informed POCC Singapore. Reported (via ReCAAP) 15 May.
- South China Sea - Duty A/B on roving deck patrol on a Singapore-flagged bulk carrier, MP Panamax 4, noticed five robbers in the forward store at 2240 LT: in position 03:42.7S – 144: 26.8E, Taboneo Anchorage, Banjarmasin, Indonesia. Two of the robbers threatened him with a knife and the A/B escaped and informed D/O who raised alarm and alerted all crew. By the time the crew members went forward the robbers had escaped with stolen ship stores. Reported (via IMB) 18 May.
- Gulf of Oman - Three skiffs chased a Panama-flagged crude tanker, Aquarius Wing, underway and approached close to the stern at 2000 LT in position 25:13N – 057:43E, around 25nm south of Ras e Jask, Iran. Alarm sounded, anti-piracy measures enforced, authorities and nearby warship contacted. Later the skiffs aborted the boarding and moved away. Reported (via IMB) 18 May.
- Gulf of Oman - Norway-flagged, Filipino-owned bulk carrier, MV Rosita (23 crew), came under attack by a number of armed people on-board several skiffs that approached the ship at high speed. Iranian warships patrolling the area rushed to assist the cargo vessel following distress call, which reported an unauthorized boarding attempt by unknown parties off Oman. Iranian Navy marines managed to foil the pirate attack on the vessel after they reached the area. No fire fight was reported between the crews of the Iranian ships and the pirates. The vessel, with deadweight of 52,338 metric tons, was en route from an Indian port to Qatar. Vessel last known posn at anchor was off Fujairah. Reported (via Iranian media sources) 20 May.
EUNAVFOR (latest) figures state 8 vessels and an estimated 235 hostages held captive (Updated 24 May) - See image below. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) figures at 18 May are: 13 vessels and 200 seafarers held hostage.
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Any suspicious activity should be reported to UKMTO in Dubai in the first instance (Email UKMTO or Telephone+971 50 552 3215) and on entering the UKMTO Voluntary Reporting Area (VRA) bound by Suez, 78E and 10S.
See full report HERE.
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