Arabian Sea

The Independence, a San Diego-based aircraft carrier, and its six-ship battle group were steaming across the Indian Ocean on Friday en route to the northern Arabian Sea, an area just outside the Persian Gulf and about 550 miles southeast of Kuwait. Navy spokesmen say the ships' movements were not related to the invasion of Kuwait by neighboring Iraq, and friends and relatives of those on board should not be overly concerned.

This city of 20 million people, the frenetic embodiment of India's energy, ambition and chaos, doesn't do quiet very well, even as it pauses for a few hours after midnight to rejuvenate. Tonight, monsoon rains from the Arabian Sea are forcing its thousands of street dwellers to retreat to dank hallways and dimly lit underpasses. Mahesh Suresh Kamble and his co-worker, Sangpal Sitaram Bachate, wait for the rain to ease before heading to a complex of four-story apartments in the heart of the city, aware that their prey prefers indoor comfort in such weather.

Two Navy pilots and a crewman from a squadron at North Island Naval Air Station were presumed dead Thursday after their helicopter crashed in the north Arabian Sea. The helicopter, a Navy SH-2F, crashed just after dawn in calm weather during an attempt to land aboard the Barbey, a frigate from San Diego, a Navy spokesman said. An investigation has been ordered to determine the cause of the crash.

Within hours of the raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound, the CIA had used 21st century technology to get "a virtually 100% DNA match" on the dead man. But something out of another century may come back to haunt Washington: the Al Qaeda leader's burial at sea. Conspiracy theorists on both the left and right were quick to insist that Bin Laden was either still alive or had been dead for years, pouncing on the government's decision to...

A Navy F-14A jet fighter, its cockpit filled with smoke and flames, crashed into the Arabian Sea on Monday after its two crewmen ejected safely, a Navy spokesman said. It was the fifth F-14 crash this month. The crewmen attempted to return to the aircraft carrier Carl Vincent after the smoke and flames appeared but were soon forced to eject, said Lt. Cmdr. Bob Pritchard of Miramar Naval Air Station, the jet's home base.

Two U.S. Navy pilots were rescued after their A-6E jet crashed into the northern Arabian Sea, the Defense Department said Saturday. A Pentagon spokesman said the pilots were on a routine training flight from the aircraft carrier Ranger on Friday when the jet crashed. The pilots ejected and were picked up a few minutes later by a helicopter from the Ranger after parachuting to safety. They were returned to their ship and are in good condition, the Pentagon said.

Lance Cpl. Zachary R. Mayo was given up for lost after falling off the aircraft carrier America in the Arabian Sea. But after floating for 36 hours using his knotted, air-filled trousers as a life preserver, the 20-year-old Marine was rescued by a Pakistani fishing boat. Cmdr. T. McCreary, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Bahrain, described Mayo as "sunburned but otherwise fine." His carrier had launched four aircraft and two smaller ships to look for him.

U.S. sailors seized more than 200 pounds of heroin and methamphetamines Saturday after an Arab sailing crew in the northern Arabian Sea tossed bags of the drugs overboard. Authorities were investigating whether Al Qaeda was linked to the shipment. The seizure came a day after the Navy said it had confiscated nearly 2 tons of hashish that was believed to be tied to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

ABOARD THE USS CARL VINSON IN THE NORTHERN ARABIAN SEA--In smeared khakis and scuffed boots, they click away. With grease under their fingernails, goggles shoved high on their foreheads, helmets dropped at their feet, the sailors are studies in silent concentration. They sign up a day in advance to spend half an hour at a computer in the ship's sweltering library.

His hands wrapped tightly around the frayed rope he uses to steer his skiff, Lutf Ali is visibly on edge as he scans the horizon. He keeps looking to the left, from where the speedboats always pounce. "The Indian boats are big and noisy, so when we hear them, we try to get away," the 50-year-old Pakistani fisherman says of the neighboring country's coast guard. "If we're lucky, we're not caught." In the cat-and-mouse game played out every day in the Arabian Sea and in the channels carved into the mud flats of the Indus River delta, Ali is the mouse.

For nearly a decade, Scott and Jean Adam's home has been a 58-foot custom-made sloop and the ocean below. Although they docked every so often in Marina del Rey to pick up mail and see old friends, the couple spent most of their time sailing to far-flung locales like the Galapagos Islands, Tahiti and New Zealand. Posting photos and information on their website , they raved about their travels aboard the Quest. "We've decided to ... explore Fiji like petals on a flower," they wrote about their 2007 trip to the South Pacific.

His hands wrapped tightly around the frayed rope he uses to steer his skiff, Lutf Ali is visibly on edge as he scans the horizon. He keeps looking to the left, from where the speedboats always pounce. "The Indian boats are big and noisy, so when we hear them, we try to get away," the 50-year-old Pakistani fisherman says of the neighboring country's coast guard. "If we're lucky, we're not caught." In the cat-and-mouse game played out every day in the Arabian Sea and in the channels carved into the mud flats of the Indus River delta, Ali is the mouse.

Hundreds of people are missing and feared dead after three boats carrying about 400 migrants from Somalia capsized near Yemen, a U.N. official said. At least a dozen bodies washed ashore in Yemen, said Laila Nassif, who heads the United Nations High Commissioner's Office for Refugees office in the coastal city of Aden. Nassif said two boats carrying about 300 migrants capsized in the Red Sea. In another incident, a boat carrying 120 migrants capsized in the Arabian Sea. All of the ships sailed from Somalia, the U.N. official said.

Pakistan should be one of the world's great tourist destinations. It is home to some of the most stunning Himalayan peaks, including K2, the second highest mountain on Earth, and gorgeous alpine valleys filled with wildflowers. There are ancient stone Buddhas carved into the mountains, Indus Valley ruins from the dawn of civilization, historic forts, beautiful Arabian Sea beaches and deserts perfect for camel trekking. Sadly, Pakistan also is home, by most accounts, to Osama bin Laden, thought to be hiding along the border with Afghanistan, and to an increasingly bold corps of suicide bombers, 60 of whom blew themselves up around the country last year.

They are a family living on the edge -- literally. At high tide, the Arabian Sea sometimes sprays saltwater right into the shack of the extended Den family, and the children play in the rough waves just outside their door as other youngsters might play in a park. It's hard to believe anyone can live here. But in a city with some of the world's most expensive real estate, they have no choice.

Navy warships seized nearly 2,800 pounds of hashish from a small vessel in the northern Arabian Sea and detained the boat's 15 crew members, who were believed to be smuggling contraband for Al Qaeda, the military said Friday. The boat seized on New Year's Day was the fourth drug-smuggling vessel intercepted by Americans recently in or near the Persian Gulf believed to be funneling money to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

The U.S. Navy has rescued an Indian vessel carrying 700 sheep that had been adrift for days on the Arabian Sea. The crew of 17 Indians and six Somalis were given food and water, which had begun to run scarce after 15 days adrift, the Navy said.

A fuel oil leak caused a fire in one of the four main machinery rooms aboard the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Constellation, steaming to the northern Arabian Sea and a possible war with Iraq, Navy officials said Saturday. The fire, which took more than an hour to extinguish, caused the shutdown of part of the ship's propulsion system.