with a $100 million oil cargo was thought to have anchored off Somalia
on Tuesday, the shipping arm of state oil giant Saudi Aramco said.
"All 25 crew members on board are believed to be safe," Vela
International said in a statement. "At this time, Vela is awaiting
further contact from the pirates in control of the vessel."
The Sirius Star is the biggest vessel ever hijacked. It was seized in
the Indian Ocean off east Africa on Sunday in the boldest attack by
pirates operating from lawless Somalia.
The pirates have driven up insurance costs, forced some ships to go
round South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal, secured millions
of dollars in ransoms and now carried out one of the most spectacular
strikes in maritime history.
The capture of the Star 450 nautical miles southeast of Kenya's
Mombasa port, and way beyond the Gulf of Aden where most attacks have
taken place this year, is the culmination of several years' increasing
activity.
"The latest attack looks like a deliberate two fingers from some very
bright Somalis. Anyone who describes them as a bunch of camel herders
needs to think again," a Nairobi-based Somalia specialist said.
The seizure was carried out despite an international naval response,
including from the NATO alliance and European Union, to protect one of
the world's busiest shipping areas.
U.S, French and Russian warships are also off Somalia.
Vela did not say exactly where the Sirius Star was anchored. Andrew
Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Association, had
said he believed it could be near the remote coastal village of Eyl, a
pirate stronghold in the semi-autonomous province of Puntland.
"The world has never seen anything like this ... The Somali pirates
have hit the jackpot," said Mwangura, whose Mombasa-based group has
been monitoring piracy for years.
A pirate associate in Eyl, reached by Reuters via telephone from
Puntland's main port Bosasso, said the ship was on its way to the
coast, but he could not say exactly where. It may in fact dock further
south than Eyl, he said, calling himself "Bashir".
NIGERIAN 'MOTHER-SHIP'?
Mwangura, who bases information on shipping groups in the area plus
family of crew and pirates, said he thought a hijacked Nigerian tug
was a "mother-ship" for the November 15 seizure.
"The supertanker was fully loaded, so it was probably low in the water
and not that difficult to board," he said, adding that the pirates
probably used a ladder or hooked a rope to the side.
Normally, the increasingly well-armed and sophisticated Somali pirates
use speedboats and satellite phones to coordinate attacks, with the
mother-ship as a base for their operations.
The seizure of the Sirius, which is three times the size of an
aircraft carrier, follows another high-profile strike earlier this
year by the pirates when they captured a Ukrainian ship carrying 33
tanks and other military equipment.
They are still holding that vessel and about a dozen others, with more
than 200 crew members hostage. Given that the pirates are well-armed
with grenades, machineguns and rocket-launchers, foreign forces in the
area are steering clear of direct attacks.
Ship owners are negotiating ransoms.
The Sirius held as much as 2 million barrels of oil, more than a
quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily exports.
It had been heading for the United States via the Cape of Good Hope at
the southern tip of Africa. It had 25 crew from Croatia, Britain, the
Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.
Chaos onshore in Somalia, where Islamist forces are fighting a
Western-backed government, has spawned this year's upsurge in piracy.
The Islamists, who are close to the capital Mogadishu, say that if
they take control they will stop piracy as they did during a brief,
six-month rule of south Somalia in 2006.
Reuters
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