Dutch navy frees German cargo ship, arrests 10 pirates

The crew of a Dutch warship has arrested 13 suspected pirates following an attack by fast boats on a cargo vessel in waters south of Oman, the EU naval mission said in a statement Thursday.

Somali pirates on Thursday freed a Greek cargo ship and its 24 Ukrainian crew after being paid 2.5 million dollars, ending a seven-month hostage ordeal off the lawless country's coast.The MV Ariana was captured on May 2 while on its way to Brazil from the Middle East ferrying 10,000 tonnes of soya beans and had lately been held off Hobyo, a pirate den in the northeast of Somalia.Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in a statement said the sailors had been set free. The pirates holding the Maltese-flagged vessel also announced they had released the cargo ship.

Pirates attacked US container ship Maersk-Alabama on Wednesday in the Indian Ocean, at 560 nautical miles off the northeast coast of Somalia, the Bahrain-based US Navy's Fifth Fleet said.A security team on the ship, which was briefly seized by pirates in April, repelled the pirates who came within 300 yards (metres) and used small arms in an attempt to board, the navy said in a statement."The security team embarked aboard Maersk-Alabama responded to the attack by using evasive manoeuvres, long-range acoustic devices and small arms fire," it added.

A pirate was shot dead when he and six others tried to hijack a UAE-owned cargo ship off the Somali coast, the EU's naval force patrolling the area said on Wednesday.The Panamanian-flagged cargo ship Almezaan, en route to Mogadishu, came under attack on Tuesday but managed to repel the would-be hijackers by returning fire, the EU's Navfor naval force said in a statement.The pirates fled the area but were pursued by the Spanish navy frigate Navarra.When the suspects failed to heed instructions to stop, warning shots were fired, Navfor's Somalia force Atalanta said.

The first European trial of Somali pirates is set to open Tuesday in the Netherlands where five men risk up to 12 years in jail for allegedly seeking to hijack a cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden.The suspects, aged 25 to 45, were arrested on January 2 last year after their high-speed boat with firearms was intercepted by a Danish frigate as they were allegedly preparing to board the Dutch Antilles-flagged Samanyolu.

Defiant Somali pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at another U.S. cargo ship on Tuesday but failed to hijack it, officials said, just days after Navy SEALs rescued an American hostage after an earlier unsuccessful hijacking.

Pirates seized a British Virgin Islands cargo ship with a mainly Sri Lankan crew of 25 off the Oman coast on Tuesday, the EU's naval force patrolling the region announced.The ship was hijacked approximately 120 nautical miles off the coast of Oman, the EU naval force said in a statement.The crew of 23 Sri Lankans, a Filipino and a Syrian were held along with the 11,000-tonne Bermudan-flagged Talca, which had been heading from Egypt to Iran, it said.

The crew of a British military ship watched as a British couple were taken hostage by Somali pirates but were ordered not to open fire, the Ministry of Defence said.The ministry insisted that the ship, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary replenishment tanker Wave Knight, could not have acted without endangering the lives of Paul Chandler, 59, and his wife, Rachel, 55.The couple were sailing near the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean on their yacht the Lynn Rival when pirates boarded as they slept on October 23.