Somali Pirates Seize Libyan Vessel
By MARK McDONALD - Published: February 4, 2010

A Libyan-owned merchant ship flying the North Korean flag has been hijacked by Somali prates in the Gulf of Aden, according to the European Union naval coalition in the gulf.

There was no immediate information about the cargo of the ship, a 4,800-ton merchant vessel called the Rim.

A United States destroyer, the Porter, and a helicopter from another American destroyer, the Farragut, were in the region and confirmed the hijacking to European Union officials. The American ships are part of Combined Task Force 151, an anti-piracy operation in the gulf led by the United States.

European naval officers said the pirates seized the Rim off the southern coast of Yemen on Tuesday and were taking it to the Somali Basin on Thursday.

The ship was not registered with the European Union’s force, known as Operation Atalanta, which escorts ships from the World Food Program delivering humanitarian aid. The European flotilla also conducts antipiracy patrols in the gulf and the waters off Somalia.

A piracy monitoring group, Ecoterra, said Thursday that the vessel usually carries a crew of 17, and “based on outdated crew lists it could be assumed that they are holding Romanian and Libyan nationalities.”

“It is assumed the vessel is now being commandeered to one of the Puntland pirate lairs,” Ecoterra said in a statement.

Somali pirates attacked 217 ships last year, according to the Piracy Reporting Center of the International Maritime Bureau. There were 47 successful hijackings, with 867 crew members being taken hostage.

Somali attacks accounted for more than half of all hijackings worldwide last year, the bureau said, with the numbers of attacks and hijackings both rising sharply compared to 2008.