Iranian ship rescued from pirate attack

Tue Apr 5, 2011

Dutch marines have rescued the crew of an Iranian fishing ship from pirates in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of the African nation of Somalia.

Marines from the frigate HMS Tromp killed two suspected Somali pirates and captured 16 others on Sunday during an operation to free the hijacked Iranian vessel, a Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported Tuesday.

The pirates had earlier opened fire on Dutch marines as they came to the assistance of the Iranian ship seized by armed people.

On Monday, Iranian Navy warships foiled a pirate attack on 300,000-ton Najm oil tanker, which was en route from Iran's southern island of Khark to the Egyptian port city of Ein al-Sakhna.

Rampant piracy off the Indian Ocean coast of Somalia has made these waters among the most dangerous in the world.

The Gulf of Aden, which links the Indian Ocean with the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, is the quickest route for more than 20,000 vessels traveling annually between Asia, Europe and the Americas.

However, attacks by heavily armed Somali pirates on speedboats have prompted some of the world's largest shipping firms to switch routes from the Suez Canal and reroute cargo vessels around southern Africa, leading to climbing shipping costs.

Somalia has been in strife for the past three decades. Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, it has been embroiled in a bitter civil war for years. The country does not have a functioning government and the authority of the so-called Transitional Federal Government is limited mostly to the area around the capital city Mogadishu.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/173165.html.