Pirates Hijack Oil Tanker In Brazen Attack
Seizure Off The Kenyan Coast Is Furthest Out To Sea And On Biggest Vessel Yet
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High Seas Piracy
In 2008 alone over 70 ships have been hijacked off the coast of Africa and their newest hostage is a Saudi oil tanker and its crew. Mark Phillips reports.
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The Sirius Star, commissioned in March and owned by the Saudi oil company Aramco, is 1,080 feet long - about the length of an aircraft carrier - making it one of the largest ships to sail the seas. (AP)
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It appeared to be the largest ship ever seized by pirates.
After the brazen hijacking, the pirates on Monday sailed the Sirius Star to a Somali port that has become a haven for bandits and the ships they have seized, a Navy spokesman said.
The hijacking was among the most brazen in a surge in attacks this year by ransom-hungry Somali pirates. Attacks off the Somali coast have increased more than 75 percent this year, and even the world's largest vessels are vulnerable.
The Sirius Star, commissioned in March and owned by the Saudi oil company Aramco, is 1,080 feet long - about the length of an aircraft carrier - making it one of the largest ships to sail the seas. It can carry about 2 million barrels of oil.
For the U.S. and foreign navies trying to protect shipping, this attack has opened up a whole new front in the pirate wars, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.
The latest incident took place about 500 miles off the coast of Kenya, well out in the Indian Ocean, rather than in the Pirate Alley of the Gulf of Aden, where most of the recent attacks have happened.
"That's an area that is four times the size of Texas," says Commander Jane Campbell of the U.S. Navy. "Greater in size than the entire Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea combined."
To protect themselves, ship captains like Colin Darch, who was hijacked earlier this year, are now being urged to arm their crews.
But as for getting in a gunfight with armed attackers in speedboats, Darch is not so sure, Phillips reports.
"They do have these rocket launchers," Darch says. "And I think a rocket launchers could punch a hole in a ship and well maybe sink it.
"They'd soon scramble up and get aboard, especially if they were shooting at anybody trying to cut the ropes or prevent it."
Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, said the pirates hijacked the ship on Saturday about 450 nautical miles off the coast of Kenya - the farthest out to sea Somali pirates have struck.
By expanding their range, Somali pirates are "certainly a threat to many more vessels," Christensen said. He said the pirates on the Sirius Star were "nearing an anchorage point" at the Somali port town of Eylon Monday.
Somali pirates have seized at least six several ships off the Horn of Africa in the past week, but the hijacking of a supertanker marked a dramatic escalation.
The pirates are trained fighters, often dressed in military fatigues, using speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rockets launchers and various types of grenades.
With most attacks ending with million-dollar payouts, piracy is considered the most lucrative work in Somalia. Pirates rarely hurt their hostages, instead holding out for a huge payday.
The strategy works well: A report last month by a London-based think tank said pirates have raked in up to $30 million in ransoms this year alone.
In Somalia, pirates are better-funded, better-organized and better-armed than one might imagine in a country that has been in tatters for nearly two decades.
They do occasionally get nabbed, however. Earlier this year, French commandos used night vision goggles and helicopters in operations that killed or captured several pirates, who are now standing trial in Paris. A stepped-up international presence of warships recently also appears to have deterred several attacks.
The Sirius Star was sailing under a Liberian flag. The 25-member crew includes citizens of Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia. A British Foreign Office spokesman said there were at least two British nationals on board.
An operator with Aramco said there was no one available at the company to comment after business hours. Calls went unanswered at Vela International, the Dubai-based marine company that operated the ship for Aramco.
Classed as a Very Large Crude Carrier, the Sirius Star is 318,000 dead weight tons.
Raja Kiwan, a Dubai-based analyst with PFC Energy, said the hijacking raises "some serious questions" about what is needed to secure such ships on the open seas.
"It's not easy to take over a ship" as massive as oil tankers, which typically have armed guards on board, he said.
But pirates have gone after oil tankers before.
In October, a Spanish military patrol plane thwarted pirates trying to hijack an oil tanker by buzzing them three times and dropping smoke canisters.
On April 21, pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades at a Japanese oil tanker, leaving a hole that allowed several hundred gallons of fuel to leak out, raising fears for the environment.
In September, three pirates in a speed boat fired machine guns at an Iranian crude oil carrier, though the ship escaped after a 30-minute chase.
Warships from the more than a dozen nations as well as NATO forces have focused their anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, increasing their military presence in recent months.
But Saturday's hijacking occurred much farther south, highlighting weaknesses in the international response.
Graeme Gibbon Brooks, managing director of British company Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service Ltd, said the increased international presence trying to prevent attacks is simply not enough.
"The coalition has suppressed a number of attacks ... but there will never be enough warships," he said, describing an area that covers 2.5 million square miles.
He also speculated that the crew of the Sirius Star may have had a false sense of security because they were so far out to sea.
He said the coalition warships will have to be "one step ahead of the pirates. The difficulty here is that the ship was beyond the area where the coalition were currently acting."
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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See all 78 Comments10 minute trial & 5 minutes to put a bullet in the back of their heads. Yea, they''re not much for sorting out the details, but those even thinking about that line of work quickly start thinking about a different career.
Posted by nikosk11 at 11:07 AM : Nov 17, 2008
Independence Day??
may i suggest raising the ladder on the side of the ship once it''s out to sea. there are also highly directional audio systems used on cruise ships to defend against undesirable approaches.
another strategy would be a modified form of the phalanx ciws anti missile system used on most american warships. a few of these on every major ship would put an end to the pirate business being an attractive option.
Posted by Flipper137 at 11:19 AM : Nov 17, 2008
They thrown grappling hooks over the edge of the ship & climb up with their weapons. Since weapons are banned on almost all ships (especially fuel ships), there''s little the crew can do.
Also, an occasional decoy that turned against the attackers wouldn''t be amiss.
The military industrial complex is focused on huge weapons programs based on Cold War era concepts of conventional warfare. These huge weapons programs have an anal fixation for spending many billions of dollars on nuclear aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, fighter plane programs like the F-18 Super Hornet, F-22 fighter plane (that costs $200 billion per plane), the B-2 bomber, missile defense in Alaska, and many others for all the services. If WW III happens we are in great shape. What value are these weapon systems against guerrillas, terrorists, or pirates for small limited wars or a terrorist with a suit case nuke?
In 2008 we still have Pirates? Cool.
Pirates of the Arabian coming to a theater near you.
If it were that simple I am sure that they would have already fixed.
By the way I am a liberal with a gun......
Posted by zoe-2009 at 02:37 PM : Nov 17, 2008
Just tell them that they are pirates are drinking rum & watching porn on the blessed ship. They will have the hanging squad in a heartbeat.
Posted by Questionnews at 02:42 PM : Nov 17, 2008
Sorry. My above post should be a lesson to those that try to type while eating hot wings with blue cheese. Do one or the other.
These Somalian pirates are just poor people trying to eat. Think about it...Who in their right mind would board a tiny boat and try to take over another boat thats 10 times bigger and whose crew outnumbers yours 5 to 1? Sounds like a pretty dumb idea no matter how uneducated you might be, right? I don''t care if you have a rocket launcher, GPS, or that suit that Ironman wears. There''s no way anyone would even think about doing anything like that unless it depends on their life or the life of their family.
the Saudi''s represented for on 9/11 (Muslim Extremists) have turned against them... WHAT ARE ALL YOU GUYS ON HERE MAD FOR ???
Granted there is the hostage situation but sooner or later something has to give here. If the waters cannot be adequately patrolled and pirate "removed" from threatening the shipping lanes it seems that something needs to be done that would make highjacking impractical.
It is rumored that the pirates are holding the ship for ransom and threatening to send the ship laden with explosives into Kenya''s port city in the hopes of blowing the country off the map if their demands are not met. Because Great Emperor-elect Obama has relatives in Kenya, the ranson the pirates are demanding are jobs in the Obama administration WITHOUT having to fill out the 9 page employment application form.
Obama is considering asking the Great Emperor Bush II to either send in the Navy''s 5th Fleet to re-capture the ship or sending a "swat" team of specially picked mercenaries from Blackwater USSA to handle the job!
Meantime corporate executives of BIG OIL, seeing an opportunity, are contemplating raising the price of gasoline back up to $4.50 a gallon because of the increased threat of pirate "terrrrrrrorism"!
SIG HEIL, I LIKE PIRATE MOVIES!!!, BUSH!!!
""It''s not easy to take over a ship" as massive as oil tankers, which typically have armed guards on board, he said."
Carry on...
Posted by wdh3007
Obama rule out no drilling a week ago...
Posted by ToolMangler
Very good Idea, just send the Predators circle around and around...
"Send a Seal Team and Kill them all this can not be allowed to continue... "
How about the rest of the international community take care of this one. Seems the more America tries to help other nations the more B.S. criticism gets tossed around.
Instead of "a day without a Mexican" we should implement " a year without help from America"
Those who commented here to destoroy the Somali ports with uranium jacketed cluster bombs, hahah.., you are simply idiots. This can never happen, if so, our uranium is AK 47, RPG, and Anti-air craft guns, these simple weapons will kick your *** out of the Somali Waters.
Those who commented here to destoroy the Somali ports with uranium jacketed cluster bombs, hahah.., you are simply idiots. This can never happen, if so, our uranium is AK 47, RPG, and Anti-air craft guns, these simple weapons will kick your *** out of the Somali Waters.
Posted by Qasaye1 at 08:53 PM : Nov 17, 2008
400 miles from the coast is in national waters, that makes them lying thieves just like you. Saddam had anti-aircraft guns also, they didn''t help him at all. If you can''t find it, you cant shoot it down.
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