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Pirates have hijacked a Japanese ship off the East African coast - the latest in a series of similar incidents near the war-torn country of Somalia.

The vessel, thought to be a tanker with a crew of Burmese, Philippine and South Korean sailors, was seized in the Gulf of Aden early on Sunday.

Officials say they are trying to find out what the pirates' demands are.

The area is notorious for piracy - of 16 reported hijackings worldwide this year, 11 were off the Somali coast.

Lawless waters

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said they received a distress call from the vessel in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday.

"We tried to contact the vessel, but there was absolutely no contact," the IMB's Cyrus Mody told BBC News.

He said coalition forces in the area were contacted, and they confirmed the ship had been taken into Somali territorial waters.

There are thought to be 23 crew members on board the vessel, none of whom is Japanese.

The incident comes two weeks after a cargo ship was hijacked on its way to Mombasa in Kenya.

The IMB said there was still no information on the safety of the crew.

Analysts say Somali waters are increasingly lawless, and merchant ships are advised to stay 200 miles from its shores.

The IMB rates Somalia as the second most high risk country for piracy in the world, after Indonesia.

A U.S. Navy warship fired on and sank two skiffs used by pirates Sunday to hijack a merchant vessel off the coast of Somalia, U.S. officials said Monday.


The destroyer USS Porter enters port at Souda Bay, Greece, in 2006.

The USS Porter responded to a distress call from the merchant vessel carrying benzene, the officials said. Sunday's shooting took place in international waters, they said.

At the request of Somalia's government, a second U.S. warship, the destroyer USS Arleigh Burke, is now shadowing the merchant ship inside Somali waters, the officials said.

In recent years, warships have stayed outside the 12-mile limit when chasing pirates.

The officials said that when the Porter fired on the skiffs tied up to the merchant vessel, it was not known the ship was filled with highly flammable benzene.

The U.S. ships are part of a international coalition that operates in the region to stop piracy and terrorism.

In June there was a similar incident when the USS Carter Hall fired warning shots to attempt to stop a hijacked Danish cargo ship off Somalia, but the Hall had to turn away when the pirated ship entered Somali waters

frigidmagi wrote:That was quick...

Dark Silver wrote:One would think the USN could handle pirates pretty well....

I mean, just send in a Carrier group, or a couple of frigates or even destroyers to patrol the area every so often, on a varying schedual so the Pirates never know when there is a group in the area just out of their intel range.