A gang of pirates attempted to board a huge Japanese-owned crude oil tanker in the Singapore Strait in the latest of a series of attacks on the region's strategically important shipping lanes, a maritime official said yesterday.
"Pirates in seven small fishing boats surrounded the tanker and attempted to board it late Tuesday," Noel Choong, head of the Piracy Reporting Centre of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) told reporters.
The 150,000 tonne Yohteisan was on an east-bound journey in heavy rain and poor visibility when the incident ocVcurred off Indonesia's Karimun islands, where the southern tip of the Malacca Strait joins the Singapore Strait.
Choong said the captain of the Panama-registered tanker took evasive measures and increased speed to escape the attackers.
All the crew members were safe and the tanker continued on its journey, he said, adding that a successful boarding of a tanker of this size in the narrow sea lane could have had disastrous consequences.
"Anything could have happened. Singapore of course will take this attack seriously," Choong said.
The foiled raid comes after four pirate attacks on ships in the Malacca Strait in the past six weeks, which have added to concerns that armed extremists could hijack a tanker to use as a floating bomb or to block the vital channel and disrupt world trade.
On April 1, the 26,014 tonne Japanese-owned bulk carrier Ocean Bridge was attacked before dawn by pirates armed with guns and knives who robbed the ship's safe of its cash before fleeing.
On March 14 a Japanese tugboat was boarded by armed men who kidnapped the captain and two crew members. They were freed a week later.
Two days earlier a gang of 35 pirates armed with machine guns and rocket launchers boarded an Indonesian gas tanker and kidnapped the captain and chief engineer. They were released after a ransom was paid.
On Feb. 28, a Malaysian tugboat was attacked.
The chief engineer was shot in the leg and the captain and chief officer were kidnapped, but later freed.
The narrow, 960km-long Malacca Strait, bordered by Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, is used by about 50,000 ships a year carrying one-third of world trade and half of the world's oil supplies.
The three nations last year began coordinated patrols in the strait, which is one of the world's top piracy blackspots.
But with the recent increase in attacks, Malaysia has announced it will also place armed and uniformed police officers on board tugboats and barges plying the waterway.
Malaysia has, however, rejected suggestions that the US or other foreign navies be allowed to help patrol the strait.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS