Pirates free ship, hold Saudi tanker

4 Dec 2008, 7:37 am   -   Source: AAP
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Somali pirates have freed a Yemeni ship, an official says.

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Somali pirates have freed a Yemeni ship, an official says, a day after the leader of their country's Islamist insurgency called for the immediate release of a Saudi supertanker and other vessels.

No ransom was paid for the release of the MV Arena, which was freed late on Tuesday 10 days after it was boarded at sea by armed men, Ali Abdi Aware, deputy foreign minister of the breakaway region of Puntland, said on Wednesday.

"The ship has been released after week-long talks with the pirates and they agreed to free it without ransom," Aware told AFP. "The pirates who hijacked the ship came onshore last night."

The release followed a sweeping condemnation of piracy by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of Islamist insurgents fighting Ethiopian-backed government forces in the lawless Horn of Africa country.

Aweys called on Tuesday for the immediate release of a Saudi supertanker and at least a dozen other foreign ships and their crews being held by the pirates, and berated the gunmen for "undermining international peace and trade".

But there was no sign on Wednesday that the cleric's call was being heeded by those holding the crude-laden Saudi supertanker Sirius Star to ransom for $US25 million ($A38.76 million).

The release of the relatively small Yemeni ship appeared incidental, given its modest cargo and the fact that the eight crew were all from the region.

"The ship was ferrying construction material from the southeastern Yemeni port of Mukalla to Socotra," a Yemeni island in the Gulf of Aden, said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers' Assistance Program.

"The ship is now headed to Socotra to discharge its cargo," he said.

If anything, the pirates seem bent on taking even more ships.

A NATO official said late on Tuesday that an Italian warship had repelled "probably the biggest multiple, coordinated attack we've seen," after more than a dozen fast boats loaded with gunmen swarmed around a convoy of five merchant vessels in the Gulf of Aden.

The warship had to put itself between the pirate boats and their prey and used a helicopter to disperse them, with all the vessels using water hoses to help repel the pirates.

That attack followed a weekend incident in which armed men made an unsuccessful attempt to board the Miami-based cruise liner Nautica, carrying 600 people in the Gulf of Aden.

The ship managed to outmanoeuvre the pirates but not before they fired several shots.

NATO has four ships - from Britain, Greece, Italy and Turkey - on patrol in the waters off Somalia, with two protecting UN food aid convoys to the strife-torn Horn of Africa country.

A Russian and an Indian warship have also joined in the operations.

The UN Security Council on Tuesday expressed its support for a European anti-piracy naval mission to begin December 8.

At 330 metres-long and carrying two million barrels of crude, the Sirius Star is by far the pirates' biggest prize, along with an arms-laden Ukrainian ship, the Faina, for which they are also demanding a multi-million dollar ransom.

The leader of the gunmen who seized it, Mohamed Said, said on Tuesday they were "waiting for a favourable reply from the owners" two days after a November 30 deadline had passed for the ransom payment.

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