NATO sinks Somali pirate mothership

 

A NATO warship has sunk a mothership used to ferry gangs of pirates in the seas off the coast of Somalia, an alliance spokesman said Monday.The Absalon, flagship of the Royal Danish navy, "disputed a piracy attack in the Somali basin on Sunday and then scuttled a mothership," the NATO spokesman said.Such ships are key to the pirates' policy of moving their attack teams into an area from which they can launch their raids on passing vessels.

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  • Somali pirates snatched 77 Thai fishermen Tuesday, their largest single hostage seizure, in an area of the Indian Ocean well outside the zone protected by an international anti-piracy mission.The fishermen, aboard three vessels, were attacked by pirates about 1,200 miles (2,222 kilometres) from the coast of Somalia, said Commander John Harbour, spokesman for the EU anti-piracy mission EUNAVFOR."It's the furthest east that any attack and any hijacking has taken place, certainly since EUNAVFOR arrived in the area December 2008," he said.

  • The Dutch navy freed Monday a German cargo ship that had been boarded by pirates off the coast of Somalia and arrested 10 of the attackers, the Dutch defence ministry announced.The Dutch frigate Tromp rescued the ship and its crew at around 1140 GMT about 900 kilometres (560 miles) east of the Somali coast, the ministry said in a statement.A Dutch soldier was slightly wounded in the operation during which the troops exchanged gunfire with the pirates who had come aboard with the help of a mothership and two attack boats.

  • An American navy warship and Somali pirates holding a US citizen hostage remained at a stand-off on Thursday amid signs that other pirate-held vessels were moving towards the area

  • Somali pirates hijacked three Thai fishing vessels with 77 crew aboard more than 1,200 miles from the Somali coast, the farthest-off-shore attack to date.

  • A hardline Islamist militia vowed Monday to end piracy in Somalia by imposing sharia law, after seizing control of a notorious nest of pirates and forcing them to flee.The pirates abandoned the port of Harardhere and sailed three recently-captured vessels off towards another base, a day after the Hezb al-Islam militia took over the town in northern Somalia."From now on Harardhere is one of the Somali towns where Islamic sharia will be implemented," Sheik Ahmed Abu Yahya, a senior Hezb al-Islam commander, told AFP by phone.

  • A court in Somalia handed out 15-year prison sentences to 11 pirates on Sunday, the presiding judge said.Prosecutors at the court in Berbera, in the breakaway northern state of Somaliland, brought a number of charges against the men, including piracy and attempted armed kidnapping.They showed the court photos obtained from NATO naval forces showing the pirates when they were arrested last December.

  • One of the biggest NATO bases in Afghanistan came under attack Wednesday, the military alliance said, in a strike claimed by the Taliban."Jalalabad airfield is under attack. I can confirm it. It is still going on, so I can't give much detail," said Lieutenant-Commander Iain Baxter, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force."The attackers couldn't enter the base," he told AFP.Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed claimed the attack on the Jalalabad base in eastern Afghanistan in a telephone call to AFP.

  • 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.

 
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