Under Fire, U.S. Liner Outruns Pirates

Pirates near Somalia chased and shot at a U.S. cruise liner with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel, a maritime official said Tuesday.

The liner, carrying 656 international passengers and 399 crew members, was sailing in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday, a maritime corridor patrolled by an international naval coalition, when it encountered six pirates in two speedboats.

The ship's captain brought the Nautica up to flank speed (above its full cruising speed of 18.5 knots) and began evasive maneuvers.

One boat managed to close within 300 yards and pirates fired upon the passenger liner with rifles, but the liner was able to outrun the smaller boats.

Most of the ships hijacked by pirates have been relatively slow freighters or tankers. This attack was on a high-speed cruise ship, and that's what may have saved her, says CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.

Had the pirates been able to capture a ship full of people - and not just people, but wealthy Westerners, a lot of them presumably American - the piracy story in the Gulf of Aden may have been taken to an ominous new level.

"It is very fortunate that the liner managed to escape," said Noel Choong who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia. He urged all ships to remain vigilant in the area.

The Nautica is owned by Oceania Cruises Inc.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said it was aware of the failed hijacking but did not have further details.

The Nautica was on a 32-day cruise from Rome to Singapore, with stops at ports in Italy, Egypt, Oman, Dubai, India, Malaysia and Thailand, the Web site said. Based on that schedule, the liner was headed from Egypt to Oman when it was attacked.

International warships patrol the area and have created a security corridor in the pirate-infested waters under a U.S.-led initiative, but the attacks have not abated.

In about 100 attacks on ships off the Somali coast this year, 40 vessels have been hijacked, Choong said. Fourteen remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 250 crew members.

In two of the most daring attacks, pirates seized a Ukrainian freighter loaded with 33 battle tanks in September, and on Nov. 15, a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million worth of crude oil.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesman Vasyl Kyrylych said Monday that negotiations with Somali pirates holding the cargo ship MV Faina are nearly completed, the Interfax news agency reported.

A spokesman for the Faina's owner said Sunday that the Somali pirates had agreed on a ransom for the ship and it could be released within days.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, and pirates have taken advantage of the country's lawlessness to launch attacks on foreign shipping from the Somali coast. Around 100 ships have been attacked so far this year.

Somali prime minister Nur Hassan Hussein said Tuesday that his country has been torn apart by 18 years of civil war and cannot stop piracy alone.

"The piracy problem is part of the legacy of the situation of the country. This 18 years of civil war is followed by disorder," Hussein told The Associated Press in an interview in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

Stopping piracy is "not something Somalia can do alone. This needs a tremendous effort," he said.

Hussein has appealed for international troops, as his government's Ethiopian allies have said they would pull out their forces by the end of the year.

The Ethiopians are all that has stood between the shaky administration and Islamic insurgents who have seized control of all of southern Somalia except for the capital and the parliamentary seat of Baidoa.

Mercenaries Discuss Protection For Shipping Companies

Private security contractor Blackwater Worldwide is meeting with shipping and insurance companies this week to describe what the company can do to protect vessels traveling through the volatile Gulf of Aden.

Blackwater is holding meetings in London from Tuesday to Thursday. Company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the meeting is being held because at least 70 companies have contacted Blackwater about protection services. However, the Moyock-based firm doesn't have any contracts yet.

Blackwater, whose security forces have been employed by the U.S. government in Iraq and elsewhere, has been at the forefront of the debate over the use of contractors in war zones.

Capitol Hill lawmakers have described Blackwater guards as mercenaries. Human rights groups have sued the company. And Iraq's government is pushing for more authority to prosecute U.S. contractors in its own courts.

Last month it was revealed that federal prosecutors had drafted an indictment against six Blackwater security guards in last year's deadly Baghdad shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians, although it was undecided whether the Justice Department would charge the guards with manslaughter or assault. The company is also being investigated for allegedly making illegal weapons shipments to Iraq.

The 20,000 ships that pass through the Gulf of Aden each year travel to and from the Suez Canal. The vessels can't avoid the 1,800 miles of Somali coastline unless they make the costly journey around the entire continent of Africa.

Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and founder of Blackwater, is a Holland, Mich., native whose family fortune was made in the auto parts industry. His sister, Betsy DeVos, a former chairwoman of the Michigan GOP, is married to Dick DeVos, a Republican and Amway Corp. heir who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2006.

Blackwater began offering anti-piracy services in October, joining a number of other security firms in talks for business there. The company is offering to use a 183-foot escort ship and armed crew.