Pirates hijack oil tanker off Kenya, kidnap crew

Vessel's capture far from shore shocks military

This undated photo at an unknown location shows the Sirius Star tanker that Somali pirates seized off the Kenyan coast. (Associated Press)

NAIROBI - In a dramatic and unprecedented display of prowess, suspected Somali pirates operating deep in open waters have seized an oil tanker as long as an aircraft carrier, the US military in the Middle East said yesterday.

The Liberian-flagged Sirius Star was hijacked, and its multinational crew of 25 was kidnapped by pirates in the Arabian Sea on Saturday more than 450 nautical miles from the major port of Mombasa, Kenya. The ship appeared headed toward Somalia, the East African country from where many of the region's pirates set out on raids, according to the US Fifth Fleet.

The pirates issued no immediate demands, said US Navy Lieutenant Nathan Christensen. "It's the largest ship we've seen attacked," Christensen added by phone from Manama, Bahrain, home to the Fifth Fleet.

The top US military officer, Navy Admiral Michael G. Mullen, said he was not surprised that pirates could capture such a massive vessel, since they are often lightly manned. But he expressed shock at the pirates' ability to operate so far from shore.

"I'm stunned by the range of it," Mullen said at a Pentagon news conference. "Four hundred fifty miles away from the coast, that is the furthest, the longest distance I've seen for any of these incidents."

The oil tanker, built in South Korea and owned by Saudi Arabian-based Saudi Aramco, apparently had been heading south toward the Cape of Good Hope, en route to North America.

Such gigantic vessels, which typically cost about $120 million, stretch longer than three football fields and transport up to 2 million barrels of oil. Its crew includes citizens of Britain, Poland, Croatia, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines, the Navy said.

"This is definitely the first time that such a big vessel has been hijacked," said Cyrus Mody, manager of the London-based International Maritime Bureau, which monitors piracy worldwide.

Military officials did not disclose how they believe the pirates managed to overwhelm the crew. Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers Assistance Program in Nairobi, speculated that the assailants must have been highly organized and employed numerous vessels.

A mother ship probably would have launched two or more smaller craft, perhaps high-speed inflatable rafts with four to six gunmen in each, Mody said in a telephone interview.

After the boats reach their prey, assault-rifle-toting pirates typically throw ladders with hooks onto the ship rails, making a beeline for the bridge in order to take control of the vessel's nerve center and the engine room.

"Once they have actually gained access there's really very little that the crew could actually do to try to protect themselves," Mody said.

Piracy is yet another challenge to the formidable tasks of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as against Al Qaeda militants, that will be faced by incoming US Central Command chief General David Petraeus in a region stretching from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia.

"As is evident with the attack on Sirius Star, increasingly daring attacks are being conducted by Somali pirates on a variety of merchant vessels," the Fifth Fleet announcement said.

Pirates typically attack within 200 miles of the shoreline, said Christensen. By staging such an attack, the pirates appeared to be "fundamentally changing the way they're doing business" in the region, the Navy officer said.