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British ship disarms suspected pirate skiffs: US Navy
Manama (AFP) June 2, 2009 British frigate HMS Portland intercepted two suspicious skiffs in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday and troops boarded them, preventing a possible pirate attack, the US Navy said. The boarding party "found articles that indicated the skiff had been involved or was about to conduct an act of piracy, and were clearly not those of an innocent fishing vessel," the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet said. The skiffs, with 10 people aboard, were carrying extra barrels of fuel, grappling hooks and a cache of weapons that included rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and ammunition, the statement said. The suspected pirates were disarmed and released because there was insufficient evidence to directly link them to a specific attack, it added. "Having prevented this group of pirates from reaching their merchant traffic prey Portland destroyed one of the skiffs and confiscated all their weapons," the statement said. Portland was on patrol for CTF 151, a US-led multinational task force also including naval forces from Turkey, South Korea, Singapore, Denmark and Japan. More than 30,000 vessels transit the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden annually. In 2009, there have been 114 attempted attacks on merchant vessels in the region, 29 of which have been successful, the navy said. Pirates are currently holding at least 20 ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, together with more than 300 seamen. Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links 21st Century Pirates
French navy hands over four pirates, two dead to PuntlandMogadishu (AFP) June 1, 2009 The French navy on Monday handed over four suspected pirates, two of them dead, to Somalia's northern breakaway region of Puntland, officials said. Puntland officials said the two were killed by the Indian navy during an attempt to attack a Norwegian-owned Liberian registered vessel with 10 Indian crew in the Gulf of Aden last Thursday. "The French navy handed over four pirates over to ... read more |
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