DUBAI (AFP) — A Saudi super tanker with a 100 million dollar oil cargo seized by pirates in a daring high seas heist was Tuesday nearing Somalia and the crew, including two Britons, is unharmed, the US Navy and the ship's operator said.
The Sirius Star, the size of three soccer fields, is the largest ship ever seized by pirates and the hijacking was the furthest out to sea Somali bandits have attacked a ship, according the US Navy.
Shipping experts said that the Somali pirates had shown that few ships sailing the Indian Ocean can be safe.
"The ship is off the coast of Somalia at large, and still under the control of the pirates. There is no information yet about their demands," a spokeswoman for the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet told AFP by telephone.
The spokeswoman had on Monday said that the huge, oil-laden prize, which is three times the displacement of a US aircraft carrier, was believed heading towards the Somali port of Eyl.
Sirius Star, which is owned by Saudi giant oil company Aramco, carries 25 crew members from Croatia, Britain, Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia, according to a US Navy statement.
A spokesman for the vessel's Dubai-based operating company Vela International said on Tuesday that crew members are "remaining safe" and that "nobody (is) harmed aboard the ship."
He said the tanker was loaded to full capacity -- two million barrels of oil, valued at 100 million dollars at current crude prices.
Vela International's website said the vessel was seized on Sunday, 420 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, although the US Navy statement on Monday said the ship was attacked south east of Kenya.
The top US military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, said he was "stunned" by the reach of the Somali pirates.
"I'm stunned by the range of it, less so than I am the size," Mullen said.
The pirates are "very good at what they do. They're very well armed. Tactically, they are very good."
Meanwhile, the British navy said on Tuesday it had handed over to the Kenyan authorities eight suspected Somali pirates captured during an incident at sea a week earlier.
Pirates are well organised in the area where Somalia's northeastern tip juts into the Indian Ocean, preying on a key maritime route leading to the Suez Canal through which an estimated 30 percent of the world's oil transits.
They operate high-powered speedboats and are heavily armed, sometimes holding ships for weeks until they are released for large ransoms paid by governments or owners.
"This is incredibly far from Somalia.... It puts a huge ring around Somalia where it isn't safe for international shipping," said Roger Middleton, consultant researcher for London-based think-tank Chatham House.
"These pirates are able to operate in deep water, so they're a needle in a haystack," Nick Davis, head of UK-based Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions, told AFP.
He said even a ship the size of the Sirius Star was relatively easy for pirates -- operating from a mother ship in the area -- to take over once they had approached their target.
The pirates' modus operandi is to approach the ship from the stern with two or three speedboats that far outpace their prey and throw grapnels tied to rope ladders to hook the bridge and board.
The International Maritime Bureau has reported that at least 83 ships have been attacked off Somalia since January, of which 33 were hijacked. Of those, 12 vessels and more than 200 crew were still in the hands of pirates.
Last week, the European Union started a security operation off the coast of Somalia, north of Kenya, to combat growing acts of piracy and protect ships carrying aid agency deliveries. It is the EU's first-ever naval mission.
Dubbed Operation Atlanta, the mission, endorsed by the bloc's defence ministers at talks in Brussels, is being led by Britain, with its headquarters in Northwood, near London.
Somalia has lacked an effective government since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre, whose ouster started a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous attempts to restore stability.
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