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Monday, April 27, 2009

Cruise ship fends off pirate attack with gunfire

Oh Yes! What did I tell you!? Arm the Crews!

h/t Ace

Cruise ship fends off pirate attack with gunfire

by Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer
Sun Apr 26, 12:21 pm ET

ROME – An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits.

Six men in a small, white Zodiac-type boat approached the Msc Melody at about 1730 GMT Saturday and opened fire with automatic weapons, Msc Cruises director Domenico Pellegrino said. They retreated after the security officers returned fire and sprayed them with water hoses. The ship continued its journey with its windows darkened.

"It felt like we were in war," the ships commander, Ciro Pinto, told Italian state radio.

None of the roughly 1,000 passengers and 500 crew members was hurt, Pellegrino said. The passengers were asked to return to their cabins and the external lights on board turned off.

Pellegrino said all Msc cruise ships around the world are staffed with Israeli security agents because they are the best trained.

The attack occurred about 200 miles (325 kilometers) north of the Seychelles, and about 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of Somalia, according to the anti-piracy flotilla headquarters of the Maritime Security Center Horn of Africa.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy 5th Fleet, said that last fall after the attack on a Saudi tanker more than 400 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia there had been "a definite shift in (the pirates) tactical capabilities."

"It's not unheard of to have attacks off the coast of the Seychelles, we've even had some in the past month," he said. "But at the same time, it is a sign that they are moving further and further off the Somali coast."

Separately Sunday, four Yemeni tankers escorted by a Yemeni coast guard boat on their way to Aden were attacked by pirates. Three of the ships escaped and coast guards captured five pirates and wounded two others, said Mohammed Abdul-Rahman, a senior official at the Overseas Shipping and Stevedoring Company. Pirates could only seize one of the tankers, the Qana. The Yemeni Interior Ministry said coast guards were trying to free it.

And the Turkish cruiser Ariva 3, with two British and four Japanese crew aboard, survived a pirate attack near the Yemeni island of Jabal Zuqar, said Ali el-Awlaqi, head of the Yemeni El-Awlaqi Marine company said.

"Pirates opened fire at the cruise ship for 15 minutes then stopped for no reason," he said, adding that the cruiser was heading to Aden, Yemen, to fix a broken engine.

International military forces have battled pirates, with U.S. Navy snipers killing three holding an American captain hostage in one of the highest-profile incidents.

But Saturday's exchange of fire between the Melody and pirates was one of the first reported between pirates and a nonmilitary ship. Civilian shipping and passenger ships have generally avoided arming crewmen or hiring armed security for reasons of safety, liability and compliance with the rules of the different countries where they dock.

Pellegrino said the pistols on board the Melody were available to the commander and security agents. He said they were used as a deterrent, "in an emergency operation."

It was not the first attack on a cruise liner. In November, pirates opened fire on a U.S.-operated ship, the M/S Nautica, which was taking 650 passengers and 400 crew members on a monthlong luxury cruise from Rome to Singapore. The cruise liner was able to outrun the pirates. In early April a tourist yacht was hijacked by Somali pirates near the Seychelles just after having dropped off its cargo of tourists.

The Melody was on a 22-day cruise from Durban, South Africa, to Genoa, Italy, when the pirates attacked late Saturday, slightly damaging the liner, Pinto said.

"After about four or five minutes, they tried to put a ladder up," Pinto told Sky TG24. "They were starting to climb up but we reacted, we started to fire ourselves. When they saw our fire, and also the water from the water hoses that we started to spray toward the Zodiac, they left and went away."

"They followed us for a bit, about 20 minutes, and continued to fire," he said.

Cruise line security work is a popular job for young Israelis who have recently been discharged from mandatory army service, as it is a good chance to save money and travel.

"We have always had great faith in their capacity, they have always been very qualified," Pellegrino said of the Israelis, though he declined to give the name of the firm.

The Spanish warship SPS Marques de Ensenada met up with the Melody to escort her through the pirate-infested northern Gulf of Aden, the Maritime Security Center said. The cruise ship was headed as scheduled to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, returning to the Mediterranean for spring and summer season cruises.

Meanwhile, Somali pirates on Sunday demanded a $5 million ransom for the release of two Egyptian fishing boats hijacked earlier this month, and the safe return of their crew, Egyptian Foreign Ministry official Ahmed Rizq said in Cairo.

"Tribal sheiks are trying to mediate to convince the hijackers to release the boats and the sailors, but it's clear to everybody that we are dealing with piracy that has no other purpose but money," he said, adding that the negotiations were between the hijackers and the boats' owners.

Pirates have attacked more than 100 ships off the Somali coast over the last year, reaping an estimated $1 million in ransom for each successful hijacking, according to analysts and country experts.

Another Italian-owned vessel remains in the hands of pirates. The Italian-flagged tugboat Buccaneer was seized off Somalia on April 11 with 16 crew members aboard.

On Saturday, the Foreign Ministry dispatched a special envoy, Margherita Boniver, to Somalia to try to win the release of the tug and crew. In a statement, the ministry also denied reports by relatives of the crew that an ultimatum had been issued by the pirates.

11 comments:

  1. To hell with the crews. Arm the passengers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Our like minds have thought alike again.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RRA -- Yes Yes!

    Christine -- dang it I hate it when I do that!

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  4. midnight rider,

    This is good news. It might prevent future pirate attacks if they think there maybe resistance, the pirates might think twice. Oh and by the way, that includes Jihady pirates!

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  5. I expect the European Union to demand that guns be banned on non-military ships for fear that it might upset some Muslims.

    Just FYI, I linked to your article from Fighting Pirates - Let Israel Do it

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  6. Wow, Bernie, I like your pirate way better than anything else we've seen piratewise. (thanks for the lonk. Added you to my daily stops list)

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  7. They retreated after the security officers returned fire and sprayed them with water hoses.I have a much better idea. Hook the hoses up to the ship's fuel supply instead of water. Spray the incoming dinghy and then fire a flare gun at it. Kaboom! Continue spraying until all pirates fried to a crisp. Problem solved. For good. No need for all the macho Israeli commando bull shit.

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  8. God damn Google messing around with Blogger and introducing a bug where there was none. Now the carriage return after the HTML tags doesn't work.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Abu Abdullah,

    you wrote,
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    God damn Google messing around with Blogger and introducing a bug where there was none. Now the carriage return after the HTML tags doesn't work.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I wish I could tell you how to fix it. Maybe you'll be extremely lucky and this will be the worst thing that happens to you this year. I've had some problems with HTML as well for some reason. Many of my comments end up looking odd after I publish them, but look fine, while being previewed.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It is one of the dangers of the ocean. There was a time when i thought that it would only be a tsunami or a hurricane that would be needed to watch out for or feared for but now there are also those who are so lazy to look for a proper job and just rob people of their money.

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  11. One of the risks of traveling through the sea is the unstable ocean and pirates. Luckily those with cruise ship jobs are trained for emergencies like this but most of them are not armed, even the cruise ship security. Piracy on the sea cannot be avoided as more people are into it because of their country's poor economy.

    ReplyDelete