MoneyBiz
Monday, September 22, 2008
Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre, said the change in tactics increased the problems facing the multinational task force patrolling the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
"As we advise the ships to sail further from the shore, the pirates are also doing the same. Now pirates are attacking on two fronts, it will be more difficult for coalition forces to patrol two areas effectively," he told AFP.
Choong said the heavily armed attackers were now operating simultaneously in the Gulf of Aden and on the eastern coast of Somalia and extending their range by operating from larger vessels.
"Pirates are now venturing 200 nautical miles or more from shore to attack and hijack ships. They are using a mother ship which could be a big boat like an ocean-going trawler, from where they launch smaller boats to attack ships."
Since January, Somali pirates have attacked 59 ships, with more than 300 crew held hostage, he said.
A Greek-owned ship with 19 sailors on board, most of them Filipinos, was seized on Sunday, becoming the 13th ship in pirate hands.
A Malta-flagged Iranian oil tanker - a massive vessel the size of a football field - had a narrow escape at the weekend after being pursued by pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades, Choong said.
"The master increased speed and took evasive manoeuvres. The ship managed to escape after a 30-minute chase," he said of the fully loaded vessel which was en route to Europe.
Source: MoneyBiz, Sept 22, 2008