Pirate attack foiled on Norwegian by NATO forces
NATO forces foil pirate attack on Norwegian tanker
ON BOARD NRB CORTE-REAL (Reuters) – NATO forces foiled an attack by Somali pirates on a Norwegian tanker then briefly detained seven gunmen after hunting them down under cover of darkness, NATO officials said on Sunday.
A spokesman aboard a Canadian warship, the Winnipeg, told Reuters that it responded after pirates armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades tried to board the 80,000-tonne MV Front Ardenne late on Saturday.
Winnipeg public affairs officer Michael McWhinnie said the pirates fled, throwing their weapons off their small skiff. But the Canadian warship pursued them for hours through the night, switching off all its lights to hunt them in the dark.
“We blocked their path. We were faster and surprisingly more maneuverable than the pirate skiff,” McWhinnie said by phone from the Winnipeg to the Corte-Real, a Portuguese warship in the area. Both vessels are on a NATO anti-piracy mission.
Dutch Marines Free Yemeni Crew as Pirates Seize Belgian Tanker
April 18 (Bloomberg) — Dutch marines foiled an attempted pirate raid in the Gulf of Aden even as a Belgian ship was seized in the Indian Ocean, adding to evidence of a shift in pirate activity away from waters subject to naval patrols.
Pirates captured the Belgian vessel with 10 crew on board north of the Seychelles Islands today, Lieutenant Commander Alexandre Fernandes, a spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said by phone.
The Belgian ship, the “Pompei”, is located almost 1,300 nautical miles from NATO’s operating area. “But on scene we have the European Maritime Force,” Fernandes said. They are “tracking the situation.”
Atalanta, the European Union’s anti-piracy operation, said April 10 that it is stepping up air patrols in the Indian Ocean as pirates refocus their activities away from the Gulf of Aden amid heavy patrols by international forces.
The Belgian ship, owned by Dredging Environmental & Marine Engineering NV and Jan de Nul Groep NV, sent out a first alarm signal at 5:30 a.m. local time in Belgium, said Peter Mertens, a spokesman of the Belgian Crisis Centre. At that time, it was 200 kilometers north of the Seychelles, he said.
At least 80 vessels have been attacked in the waters around the Horn of Africa since the start of the year, 19 of them seized by brigands using rocket launchers and automatic weapons, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Yet the legal systems in many ship operators’ nations lack the necessary laws for dealing with pirates.
NATO forces free 20 pirate hostages
NATO forces have managed to free 20 Yemenis who were taken hostage by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden last week, the alliance says.
According to NATO Lieutenant Commander Alexandre Fernandes, NATO forces also detained seven Somali pirates in the operation but let them go as they had no authority to arrest them.