Indian Navy foils suspected pirate attack
Reporting from Beirut – An Indian warship patrolling the treacherous waters off the Horn of Africa destroyed a suspected pirate ship late Tuesday, at least the second time in a week the armed forces of New Delhi have unleashed military force to combat piracy amid an upsurge of maritime lawlessness.
According to a press release issued today by the Indian defense ministry, the INS Tabar opened fire on a pirate ship after it came under attack Tuesday evening, leaving the burning ship to sink. There was no mention of rescuing or capturing its crew.
Along with the U.S., Russia and European nations, India is among the naval forces patrolling the Gulf of Aden, a major shipping lane between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Concern over piracy surged after audacious bandits Saturday hijacked a gigantic 1,000-foot tanker loaded with at least $100 million worth of crude oil and moored it near a pirate's haven off the coast of Somalia.
On Tuesday, pirates off the Somali coast seized an Iranian-owned and Hong Kong-flagged freighter carrying 35 metric tons of wheat and a crew of 25, a Greek freight ship with a crew of 23 and a Thai fishing boat and its crew of 16. The ships, crew and cargo are typically anchored off the Somali coast and bartered for huge sums of cash.
The scourge has become a major headache for shippers facing increased insurance and security costs. Already a major Norwegian shipping firm announced that it would no longer sail through the Gulf of Aden, rerouting its freighters and tankers to travel all around Africa in order to avoid the Suez Canal, which connects Mediterranean to the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula.
The move would incur "significant" extra costs to be passed on to customers and consumers.
"We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden," Terje Storeng, president and CEO of Bergen, Norway-based Odfjell said in a press release. "Odfjell is frustrated by the fact that governments and authorities in general seem to take a limited interest in this very serious problem."
The U.S. military said it can only take limited steps to intervene and thwart pirates. Maritime experts say international law on jurisdiction regarding pirates is murky, with naval forces clearly permitted to attack pirates only when a commercial ship is under assault.
