NAIROBI, Kenya — NATO forces rescued 20 fishermen from pirates who launched the latest attack in the Gulf of Aden on Saturday but let the Somali hijackers go because they had no authority to arrest them.
The release underscored the difficulties of stopping the skyrocketing piracy scourge off the Horn of Africa, where sea bandits also seized a Belgian- flagged ship carrying 10 foreign crew near the Seychelles islands and started hauling it toward Somalia.
The first attack Saturday occurred in the predawn darkness, when pirates hijacked the Belgian-flagged Pompei a few hundred miles north of the Seychelles, said Portuguese Lt. Cmdr. Alexandre Santos Fernandes, who is traveling with a NATO fleet patrolling farther north in the Gulf of Aden.
Belgian officials said the ship sounded three alarms indicating it was under attack as it headed toward the islands, a high-end tourist destination, with a cargo of concrete and stones. The dredging ship had 10 crew: two Belgians, one Dutch, three Filipinos and four Croatians, Fernandes said.
As pirates steered the ship slowly northwest toward Somalia, 430 miles away, a Spanish military ship, a French frigate and a French scout ship all steamed toward the area to try to intercept it.
In a second attack later Saturday, pirates on a small white skiff fired small arms and rockets at a Marshall Islands- flagged tanker.
Fernandes said the ship, the Handytankers Magic, issued a distress call shortly after dawn but escaped the pirates using “speed and maneuvers.” The attack occurred in the Gulf of Aden, a vital shortcut between Europe and Asia and one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
A Dutch frigate from the NATO force responded to the distress call and trailed the pirates to a Yemeni-flagged fishing dhow the brigands had seized Thursday, Fernandes said.
The pirates climbed into the dhow and Dutch marine commandos followed soon after, freeing 20 fishermen whose nationalities were not known.
By the numbers
80 Boats that pirates have attacked this year — four times the number in 2003
18 Ships held by pirates
310 Total crew members being held hostage, according to an AP count
