Gunmen seize gas tanker in Malacca Strait
16 minutes ago Asia - AFP
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - A gang of 35 pirates armed with machine
guns and rocket launchers 
seized a fully-laden gas tanker in
the Malacca Strait at the weekend, a piracy watchdog reports,
rekindling fears of a possible terrorist attack in the vital
waterway.
The ship has been released but the captain and chief engineer were
kidnapped and the pirates are demanding a ransom, Noel Choong,
regional manager of the Piracy Reporting Centre of the
International Maritime Bureau (IMB), told AFP.
The 1,289-tonne Indonesian-owned MT Tri Samudra was carrying a
cargo of methane gas from Samarinda in Kalimantan province on
Borneo island to Belawan on Sumatra island when it was boarded in
the early evening on Satuday, Choong said.
"The pirates attacked the ship as it was heading towards Belawan
and ordered it to sail to Dumai (also in Sumatra). During the
journey to Dumai the captain and chief engineer were kidnapped and
taken off the ship."
The ship, sailed by the remaining crew members, arrived in Dumai on
Sunday.
"The status of captain and chief engineer are unknown. The
hijackers are negotiating with the ship's owners for their
release," he said.
The ship's owners believe the pirates were rebels from the Free
Aceh Movement (GAM), which has been fighting for independence for
Aceh province in the north of Sumatra island, Choong said.
The owners had headed their report to the IMB "Pirate
attack/terrorist", he said, without naming the owners.
"If this is a terrorist attack it will have severe consequences on
the security of the ports in the region. It looks like they
(pirates) are becoming very daring and they are moving away from
the normal coastal attacks towards the open sea and towards
Malaysian waters," Choong said.
The Malacca Strait, one of the world's busiest waterways, has long
been a haunt of Indonesian pirates, and fears have been expressed
that international terrorists could team up with pirates to seize a
ship and launch an attack on a port or other ships.
A shipping expert who requested anonymity told AFP: "This type of
vessel is ideal for terrorist acts because of its size and shallow
draft. It can go to many intended targets, including ports and
refineries and cause explosions."
Malaysia announced on Friday that it would boost security in the
Malacca Strait with a 24-hour radar system to guard against attacks
by terrorists and pirates.
Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said a Malaysian Maritime
Enforcement Agency would be operational by the end of the year to
improve security in the strait.
The narrow 960-kilometre (600 mile) waterway bordered by Malaysia,
Singapore and Indonesia is used by some 50,000 ships a year
carrying a third of world trade and half its oil supplies.
The three nations last year began coordinated patrols in the Strait
after Japan and Western countries expressed concern that terrorists
could hijack a tanker to use as a floating bomb or to block the
vital channel and disrupt world trade.
P. Mukundan, director of the London-based IMB, told AFP during a
visit to Malaysia last year that much of the alarm about security
in the Strait had been caused by a report that armed men had
hijacked a tanker for a few hours, learned how to manoeuvre it and
then left.
This was interpreted as a practice run for using a tanker in a
maritime version of the September 11 attacks on the United States,
but Mukundan said there was no truth in the report.
.
