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.
.
