Kidnappings for new trend for pirates: Bureau

Kidnappings for new trend for pirates: Bureau

Associated Press, Kuala Lumpur

In a disturbing new trend, sea hijackings and kidnappings for
ransom in the busy shipping lane between Malaysia and Indonesia
are on the rise, a watchdog group said Monday.

"The fight against piracy is threatened by a new trend that
has seen pirates demanding ransom for the release of kidnapped
crew members," the International Maritime Bureau's Kuala Lumpur-
based piracy watch center said in its latest report.

Two such cases occurred in two months in the Malacca Straits
around Indonesia's Aceh province, where separatists are fighting
the government for an independent homeland, and there may have
been more cases which were not reported because ship owners were
threatened, the report says.

The agency said the separatist Free Aceh Movement has
threatened to disrupt shipping in the straits, the narrow channel
between peninsula Malaysia and Indonesia's Sumatra Island which
is one of the world's busiest sea lanes and also considered the
most pirate-infested.

Worldwide, 253 attacks were reported between Jan. 1 and the
end of September, compared to 294 attacks in the same period in
2000, the bureau said.

While attacks overall were fewer, the number of hijackings
more than doubled, from six in the first nine months of 2000 to
15 in the same period this year. And the number of times crews
were taken hostage also increased, from 132 times in the first
nine months of 2000 to 205 times in the same period this year.

Pirates were also more commonly using guns during their
attacks. According to the report, 34 pirate attacks involved guns
in the first nine months of 200, compared to 50 in 2001.

The report recorded fewer pirate attacks in Indonesia and the
Malacca Straits in the first nine months of 2001 compared to
2000.

In the period covered by the report, there were 71 actual and
attempted attacks reported in Indonesia, 14 in the Malacca
Straits and 15 in Malaysia, the agency said. This compared to 90
attacks in Indonesia, 32 in the Malacca Straits and 15 in
Malaysia for the same period in 2000.

Indonesia by far still has the worst piracy problem, with the
next-nearest number of attacks occurring in India, which had 22
attacks in the period covered by the report.

Attacks in the Philippines rose from two in the first nine
months of 2000 to seven in the same period this year, the agency
said.

Last year, a record 469 piracy incidents were reported
worldwide, an increase of 56 percent over 1999 and more than four
times the number reported in 1991. Some 72 ship crew members were
killed and 99 injured in 2000, up from 3 killed and 24 injured a
year earlier.