Indian Navy foils attack on cargo ship, two pirates feared

New Delhi, May 29 (PTI) An Indian Navy ship has thwarted
a pirate attack on a merchant vessel with 10 Indian crew in
the Gulf of Aden in which two of the eight Somali sea brigands
are feared killed and the rest arrested, Navy sources said
Friday.

The attack on the Norwegian-owned merchant vessel -- M V
Maud, flying the Liberian flag -- took place about 225
nautical miles east of Aden around 1300 hours IST Thursday,
the sources said.

INS Talwar, a guided missile frigate, was escorting a
three-vessel group in the international recommended transit
corridor in the Gulf of Aden when Maud crew noticed an
eight-member pirate gang in a skiff approaching towards it.

The vessel's captain sent a distress signal to Talwar,
which rushed a helicopter to ward off the piracy attack.

"There was just about two-mile visibility at that hour
due to haze. And that short distance and high speed of the
skiff left Talwar with little time to respond," the sources
said.

As the helicopter approached the merchant vessel, Navy
personnel noticed two of the pirates trying to board the ship
after locking a ladder on it. The Navy fired at the two men,
who fell into the sea. The duo is feared dead as the Navy
personnel did not see them resurfacing.

"We shot at the two pirates boarding the ship and they
fell into the sea. We did not notice them resurfacing. We are
not sure about their fate," sources said.

Later, Talwar sent its men in a rigid hull inflated boat
(RHIB) to the pirate's skiff. The brigands surrendered to the
navy, which disarmed them and dumped their fuel. The Navy also
recovered a large cache of arms that included AK-47 rifles,
rocket-propelled grenades, a rocket launcher, ammunition, GPS
and mobile phones.

The six men on the skiff, which was adrift, were later
picked by another foreign warship, navy sources said.

"Yesterday's incident was by far the most dangerous
operation that Navy carried out against pirates in the Gulf of
Aden, as the pirates were already in the process of boarding
the merchant vessel. If they had boarded and taken control of
the cargo ship, the curative task would have been more
difficult," the sources said.

Since the Navy joined the international anti-piracy
operations in the Gulf of Aden last November, it has already
busted a pirate mother ship and rescued about half-a-dozen
merchant vessels, including those bearing foreign flags. PTI
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