Hunt of the Sea Wolves

Sail World:

Two British cruising sailors have told how they were attacked and robbed by armed pirates as they sailed about two miles off the coast of Venezuela heading from the Venezuelan island of Margarita to Trinidad, on a round-the-world adventure.

Peter Lee, 61, rammed his pursuers in a bid to knock them off their boat as it came alongside his 41ft yacht but the pirates managed to scramble on board after firing several shots at him.

The couple’s dog then furiously attacked the men, biting and snapping at them, until one of them shot and stabbed the animal between the shoulder blades, leaving him for dead.

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101 News:

Piracy is no longer the stuff of legend, or merely part of a billion-dollar movie franchise. It has become a major threat to Africa’s increasingly vulnerable coastline. The proliferation of pirate attacks is progressively posing a major threat to the African continent’s critical trade routes with other nations.

The UN Security Council (no doubt at its wit’s end as to the solution to this burgeoning crisis) has now provided nations with new powers to pursue pirates into the waters off Somalia in an effort to combat a spate of hijackings off the Horn of Africa.

The unanimous resolution calls on UN members to use “all necessary means to repress acts of piracy and armed robbery” and authorises warships to chase pirates into Somali territorial waters if necessary.

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Parris shouted into his wire microphone, “Damn it, Stinger! I need a live one. Can’t you just wing one for the team?”

            Sand squinted through the night-vision scope again. The green world that he saw revealed flashes from all the weapons, which made it difficult at first for him to find a man crawling in the tall grass. Finally, he spotted one crawling toward the nearby woods. Sand moved the crosshairs from the back of the guy’s head down to his ass, and whispered into his mike, “One winged rag head coming up, boss.” He put the bullet into the man’s right buttock and watched through the scope as the man struggled to get up and run, then collapsed. “One stinger delivered, as ordered.”

            In seconds, the fighting escalated into chaos. Parris shouted into his radio, “S and D, troops.”

            From seemingly nowhere, tracers crisscrossed, lighting up the grassy area, as the terrorists were determined to fight to the death. Three of them were granted their wishes as the entire team fired into the grass. Two of the men appeared to be more rational as they tossed their weapons aside and threw up their hands to surrender.

            A young agent, Gary Wiler, popped up out of the grass near the two and screamed at them, “Down on your bellies! Get down! Now!”

            The two acted as if they didn’t understand him. Wiler stared at them, not sure what to do, and then he heard Parris’ voice come across his headset, “Wiler! I said S and D!”

            “They’re unarmed,” Wiler protested.

            “Put them down! Now!” Parris commanded.

            The two men looked panic-stricken. The younger of the two looked like he was only about seventeen. He pleaded, “Don’t shoot! We surrender.”

            The second chimed in, “We give up. Please do not shoot.”

Russia Today:

Russia’s top arms producer has unveiled plans to help repel attacks by pirates and reduce the number of hijacks on the country’s civil ships.

Vladimir Korenkov, from arms manufacturer Bazalt, said it‘s equipping vessels with it’s multi-barrel grenade launching systems to help curb pirate aggression.

But the move is a complex one and involves passing stringent measures regarding weapons on boats.

Korenkov told RIA Novosti news agency: “Grenade launchers are more complex than small arms. Special regulations are needed to arm ships with them.”

Piracy remains an acute problem for world trade. According to the International Maritime Organization, more then a hundred incidents were reported in the first six months of 2008, with the African coastline being the main hotspot.

The Punch:

Suspected pirates on Thursday evening abducted five Russian nationals from a Swedish Marine carrier, Herkules, which was on charter by Saipem, a subsidiary of ENI Group.

The vessel  was reportedly attacked by 15 gunmen onboard two speedboats. Herkules was sailing towards the Akpo Oilfield when the suspected pirates captured it about 19 nautical miles towards the shores of Bonny.

A source said 12 persons were onboard, including 11 Russians and one Ukrainian. Shortly after the attack, the source said, the vessel was steered towards Sambreiro River, which is located at about 15 nautical miles, west of the mouth of the Bonny River.

He said the ship was later freed on Friday morning near the mouth of the Sambreiro River, with only seven crew members onboard. He said the five remaining crew members had been taken hostage by the suspected pirates while the vessel sailed towards the Bonny River after it was freed.

The spokesman of the Joint Task Force in Rivers State, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, in a telephone communication confirmed the attack on the Swedish vessel.

Washington Times:

Rising oil and gas prices, environmental concerns and the possibility of domestic gas shortages have drastically increased demand for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) within the United States.

There are six active U.S. LNG terminals, with 40 more marine LNG facilities proposed to service the U.S. market. LNG facilities are unique and the ships transporting it are highly visible and easily identified targets. They are extremely vulnerable to a terrorist attack, which if successful, could have catastrophic results. Within the continental United States, the U.S. Coast Guard, under the Department of Homeland Security, currently has the lead responsibility for LNG tanker and marine terminal security.

As the frequency of LNG tanker arrivals in U.S. ports increases, and new LNG terminals are built, U.S. Coast Guard resources and personnel are being severely overextended and are unable to balance the demand of LNG security requirements against other critical and growing Homeland Security responsibilities, as well as carry out their traditional search and rescue, law enforcement, marine safety and environmental protection missions.

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From the Office of Naval Intelligence:

 The anti-pirace and crime report:

Britain is proposing training the army in Nigeria to combat Niger Delta rebels.  Britain Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to offer British help to the Nigerian government in combating rebels at a meeting in London next week with Nigeria president Umaru Yar’Adua.  However, British officials aren’t certain if Yar’Adua would even accept such an offer. 

The plan has received a mixed response in Nigeria, where one official said the authorities were hoping for help in curtailing an international cartel trading in stolen Nigerian crude.  Also, the prospect of British intervention in the delta conflict has prompted the end of a ceasefire in the region and drawn accusations of neo-colonialism from rebel groups.

They’ve also accused the Nigerian government of illegal actions.  Brown’s statement on Wednesday that Britain stood “ready to give help to the Nigerians to deal with the lawlessness that exists in this area and to achieve levels of production that Nigeria is capable of,” led to the rebel group MEND to claim it will call off its ceasefire 12 Jul 08.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the focus will be on providing training for the Nigerian military.  The plans do not include deployment of British troops in significant numbers, but the country’s defense ministry is said to be resistant, warning it might further stretch military resources.

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Reuters:

Two Germans kidnapped by Somali pirates a month ago and being held in the bush in the East African nation have said they are ill, have very little to eat and fear for their lives, a news magazine reported on Tuesday.

Der Spiegel magazine said it spoke to the man and woman, which it named as Juergen K. and Sabine M., by mobile telephone. It quoted them as saying they were being held in the bush by between 40 and 50 Somalis who were demanding a ransom.

They appealed to the German embassy to do more to secure their release, the magazine reported.

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Free Press:

Blackwater Worldwide, the company that unwittingly became a catchall brand name for security contractors in Iraq, wants to shift its business away from the sector that earned it hundreds of millions of dollars.

Blackwater executives said Monday that they never intended security to become such a large part of their business. They said the intense and often negative media attention, coupled with multiple government investigations following a deadly shooting last year in Baghdad, simply make the cost of doing business too high.

“The experience we’ve had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk,” company founder and CEO Erik Prince said at the company’s North Carolina compound.

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AFP:

Pirates have seized a Japanese-owned vessel transporting lead and zinc off the Somali coast, a Kenyan maritime official said Tuesday.

The Panama-flagged MV Stella Maris was seized on Sunday near Calula, a port town in Somalia’s breakaway northern region of Puntland, said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Programme.

Puntland presidential advisor Bile Mohamoud Qabowsade said “Thirty eight heavily-armed pirates stormed the ship sailing in the international waters in the Gulf of Aden.”

“So far we are tracking them down. We want to know where they are going to stay with the ship,” Qabowsade said.

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