Somali Pirates | featured news

The naval spokesman for the European Union's anti-piracy force says Somali pirates have seized a Chinese cargo ship with 25 people onboard.

Somali pirates in two skiffs fired on a French navy vessel early Wednesday after apparently mistaking it for a commercial boat, the French military said.

The crew of two Egyptian fishing vessels overpowered Somali pirates after being held hostage for four months and, with machetes and tools, killed at least two pirates before sailing to freedom, a pirate and businessmen said Friday.

The case marked a rare instance of crewmen fighting back against Somali pirates, who usually hold their hostages for months in anticipation of million-dollar ransoms.
One pirate was in custody after local fishermen found him near shore with machete wounds, police said.

A crew member on a U.S.-flagged cargo ship captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia is suing his employers, claiming they sent him into pirate-infested waters without adequate protection, his attorney said Monday.

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.

Dutch naval forces captured seven pirates and freed 20 captive fishermen after tracking the pirates to their "mother ship" in the western Gulf of Aden on Saturday, a NATO maritime spokesman said.

New television programmes in the US and UK are to look at the threat of pirates off the east African coast.

Somali pirates failed to board the U.S. cargo ship Liberty Sun, but hijacked two other vessels and attacked another.

Somalia government leaders say they could deal more effectively and cheaply with the piracy problem off their shores if the international community would provide funding.

With foreign warships looming off its shores and a worldwide debate raging over how to defeat piracy, leaders in this seaside Somali capital say there's a solution that could be fast, simple and relatively cheap: the Somalis themselves.

Somali pirates on Monday vowed to retaliate for the deaths of three colleagues who were shot dead by U.S. Navy snipers hours before in a daring nighttime assault that freed a 53-year-old American captain.