Security

Somali Pirates Nab Supertanker, Biggest Prize Yet

Somali pirates have nabbed their biggest prize yet — a Saudi-owned supertanker, about as big as an aircraft carrier.* The ocean-going hijackers managed to pull off this latest assault, on the Sirius Star, despite a swarm of international warships now working to ward off such strikes. "Our presence in the region is helping deter and […]

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Somali pirates have nabbed their biggest prize yet -- a Saudi-owned supertanker, about as big as an aircraft carrier.* The ocean-going hijackers managed to pull off this latest assault, on the Sirius Star, despite a swarm of international warships now working to ward off such strikes.

"Our presence in the region is helping deter and disrupt criminal attacks off the Somali coast, but the situation with the *Sirius Star
clearly indicates the pirates’ ability to adapt their tactics and methods of attack," U.S. Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, Commander, Combined
Maritime Forces, said in a statement. "Typically, pirates attack within 200 miles of the shoreline and go after smaller prey," the L.A. Times *observes.

The* Star "held a cargo of as much as two million barrels of oil
-- more than one quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily production," Reuters notes. (That's a picture of her sister ship the, Capricorn Star, above.) It was hit "450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, was in an area far beyond the Gulf of Aden, where most of the attacks on shipping have taken place." Citizens of Croatia, Great
Britain, the Philippines, Poland, and Saudi Arabia are among the Sirius Star's *crew of 25.

Ships from Russia, India and NATO have rushed to eastern Africa, to beef up Gortney's protective armada. More vessels, from the European Union, are on the way. But there's only so much the warships can do, Gortney's group conceded.

"The area involved off the coast of Somalia and Kenya as well as the
Gulf of Aden equals more than 1.1 million square miles. That is roughly four times the size of the U.S. state of Texas or the size of the
Mediterranean and Red Seas combined," noted a Combined
Maritime Forces press release.

Gortney also appeared to blame the owners of the Sirius Star and other hijacked ships for their vessels' fate. In August, the
Combined Maritime Forces set up a narrow corridor in the Gulf of Aden -- and recommended that merchant ships stay inside. Gortney's also told the ships to be ready to defend themselves, if need be.

But "out of 15 recent pirate attacks... at least 10
involved ships operating outside the... recommended traffic corridor or failing to employ recommended self protection measures, making them more vulnerable," the Combined
Maritime Forces release observed.

“Most notably, none of the vessels had embarked security teams. Embarked security teams would have prevented these successful attacks,” said Gortney. “Companies don’t think twice about using security guards to protect their valuable facilities ashore. Protecting valuable ships and their crews at sea is no different.”

Last Wednesday, the British Navy repelled an attack on a Danish cargo tanker, killing at least two pirates. Two days later, NATO warned that pirates were "targeting larger cargo / oil / gas / chemical tankers," like the Sirius Star.

[Photo: Vela International Marine Ltd.]

* Changed from "three times as big as an aicraft carrier." Supertankers, a friend points out, "are only about 1,000 to 1,100 feet long. So are our carriers."

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