Somali pirates seize Saudi tanker
Updated on 17 November 2008
Somali pirates carry out their most dramatic operation yet: seizing a supertanker off the Kenyan coast.
The ship, with 25 crew on board, including two Britons, was seized 450 nautical miles south east of the port of Mombasa and is being taken to a Somali port.
There have been several attacks on ships off Kenya and the Horn of Africa.
But the 1,000-foot-long Sirius Star, carrying two million barrels of oil, is the largest vessel ever targeted by pirates.
The seizures have led to foreign navies sending warships to the region.
It is less than a month since Somali pirates seized a Belize-flagged cargo ship owned and operated by Kaalbye Shipping, Ukraine. The pirates forced the ship, carrying a cargo of Ukrainian T-72 tanks and related military equipment, to proceed to anchorage off the Somali coast.
The pirates, pictured above aboard the ship, were requested by the US Navy to show the crew of the merchant vessel MV Faina, and have them stand on the deck on 9 November 2008 in Somalia.
