KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Piracy, the age-old scourge of the

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Piracy, the age-old scourge of the high seas, is resurfacing with a vengeance around the world but the most dangerous stretch of water is the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to a report released on Wednesday.

In the first nine months of this year the number of reported pirate attacks on ships rose 66 percent over year ago levels, said the report released by the International Maritime Bureau.

The report said 294 actual or attempted attacks worldwide compared to 300 for the whole of last year. It also said seven areas shared more than two-thirds of the total in the first nine months -- Indonesia (90), Bangladesh (32), the Strait of Malacca (32), India (23), Malaysia (15), the Red Sea (8) and Ecuador (8).

Patrols have been stepped up in the Strait, one of the world's most important sea lanes, and there have been no attacks reported there since Malaysian police caught members of a well known gang a few weeks ago, said Noel Choong, regional director of the bureau's Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia had promised to step up marine police and naval patrols. But there were difficulties in identifying pirate boats among the hundreds of small boats in the strait, especially at night.

Japanese ships have suffered 141 attacks in the past 11 years. Japan's Coast Guard said Monday it would hold joint exercises with its Indian and Malaysian counterparts to cope with the growing piracy scourge in Asia.

The first drill will be held with India off the Indian coast on Nov. 8. Japan will hold a second, similar drill with Malaysia off its coast on Nov. 15. The Japanese coast guard said at least 15 countries would take part in a meeting in Kuala Lumpur from Nov. 13 to 15 to discuss ways to combat piracy.

Anchored ships were favorite targets, Choong said, and in a third of cases they took crews hostage. In one incident 21 masked, armed pirates boarded a Malaysian fuel tanker in Indonesia waters on Sept. 25.

The attackers slashed one officer and beat and kicked a second before tying up the rest of the crew. They repainted the ship's funnel and lifeboats, changed its name then sailed to a rendezvous with a second tanker and transferred most of the cargo before getting clean away.

That attack cost a major oil company $740,000, Choong said. An average haul will net pirates $20,000, he added.

Pirate attacks have been growing since 1995, three years after the shipping industry established the Piracy Reporting Center. The center documented 300 attacks in 1999 and this year "it's definitely going to be more," Choong said.

Bangladesh and India were ranked third and fourth by number of attacks in the first nine months of 2000.

The report blames political unrest and economic recession in Indonesia for the wave of attacks in the Strait of Malacca.

"This international shipping route has once again become the most notorious sea lane and the pirates appear to have been successful in eluding the authorities," says the report.

Ninety percent of pirates are "petty thieves" looking for cash or anything they can grab, Choong said. But "the threat of violence is always there," he added.