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A US destroyer intercepted a hijacked Israeli-managed oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden earlier today, freed the crew, and took the Houthi pirates into custody. My colleague Jeff Charles covered the piracy in this post, High Seas Drama: Another Israeli Tanker Seized by Unidentified Attackers Near Yemen.Shortly after dawn local time, the Central Park, a small Liberian-flagged oil and chemical tanker managed by an Israeli company registered in London, sent a distress call saying it was being boarded by armed men. The USS Mason, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was operating in the area. According to reports, the Mason directed...

An Israeli ship named “Galaxy Leader” has reportedly been hijacked by Yemen’s Houthi militia in the Red Sea. The ship had 22 people on board, according to reports. Israeli sources said that the Houthis seized a vessel partially owned by Israel in the Red Sea. No Israeli nationals were on board the ship, according to the sources. Earlier on Sunday, Yahya Sarea, a spokesman for the Iran-backed Houthis, said that the group would target all ships owned or operated by Israeli companies or carrying the Israeli flag, according to the group’s Telegram channel.

The Israel Defense Forces says the hijacking of a shipping vessel in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen is a “very serious incident on the global scale.” It says the ship was sailing from Turkey to India with an international civilian crew, without any Israelis aboard. “This is not an Israeli ship,” the IDF adds. The military directly blames the Houthis for the hijacking. There are no Israelis among the crew aboard the Galaxy Leader ship. Arabic-language media outlets say there are 52 crew members aboard the vessel. The Bahaman-flagged vessel is registered under a British company,...

The captain of the Arctic Sea freighter contacted the ship’s operating company Thursday for the first time since the ship mysteriously disappeared in July. The captain made a brief call to Solchart Arkhangelsk Ltd.’s office on his cell phone, a company spokesman said. “He said the rest of the crew on the ship is all fine,” the spokesman told Interfax. Eleven of the 15-member crew have returned to their families in Arkhangelsk, while the other four are on the ship sailing to Novorossiisk. The 11 were not allowed to contact their families for more than a week after they flew...

Washington · Otto Reich, President Bush's chief adviser on Latin America, said on Thursday that the administration will step up efforts to pressure the Fidel Castro regime, aid dissidents and hasten the political transformation of the island. "I know that President Bush is interested in doing more to accelerate the process of change in Cuba, and it's safe to say that in the next few weeks and months you will see some additional steps," Reich said. "It's been very difficult for this president to implement this policy for Cuba and the Western Hemisphere because up to this week he was...

MIAMI (AFP) - A senior White House official claimed Friday Cuban President Fidel Castro may have ordered a recent boat hijacking in a successful bid to sow discord between the Cuban-American community and the US administration. "Look at the impact on the Cuban (American) community: he's got Cuban groups fighting against each other, he's got the Cuban community criticizing the administration," said Otto Reich, President George W. Bush's chief advisor on Latin America. "This was a million-dollar operation; you cannot buy that kind of discord," Reich told AFP. The administration has come under criticism from prominent Cuban-American leaders for sending...

NAIROBI (KTLA) -- U.S. military officials say they're prepared to rescue four Americans who are reportedly aboard a yacht that was hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. On Friday, a distress signal was sent by the boat from the middle of the Indian Ocean, according to the French news agency AFP. The hijacking was first reported by Ecoterra International, which monitors regional maritime activity. Ecoterra said the S/V Quest was seized 240 nautical miles (275 miles) off the coast of Oman. Two of the four U.S. citizens being held captive aboard the S/V Quest have been identified as...

U.S. convicts "Prince of Marbella" of arms deal Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:17pm EST By Edith Honan NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. federal jury convicted a Syrian arms dealer and a co-defendant on Thursday of conspiring to sell $1 million in weapons...Monzer al-Kassar, 62, a longtime resident of Spain known as the "Prince of Marbella" for his lifestyle in the glitzy seaside town... Kassar has been selling weapons since the 1970s to the Palestinian Liberation Front and clients in Nicaragua, Bosnia, Croatia, Iran, Iraq and Somalia. In 1995, Kassar was tried and acquitted of supplying arms that were used...

Wednesday, April 16, 2003 The daughters of an elderly man who was killed by a violent Palestinian group during the hijacking of a cruise ship in 1985 hailed the arrest of the faction's leader and said it will send a message to other terrorists. "We are delighted that the murderous terrorist Abul Abbas is in U.S. custody," Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, the daughters of Leon Klinghoffer, said in a statement provided by family friend and spokeswoman Letty Simon on Tuesday night. Abbas, who led a faction of the Palestine Liberation Front, was taken by American special operations forces during a...

Report: Russia hijacked its own ship Ynet probe reveals Russian intel used secret agents to arrest the Arctic Sea vessel, thought to have been hijacked by Israel, after getting tip it was violating international accord by carrying 'destabilizing' arms to Syria or Iran Ron Ben-Yishai Published: 09.02.09, 19:03 / Israel News A Ynet investigation revealed Wednesday that the hijacking of the Russian vessel 'Arctic Sea' was ordered by the Russian government. News agencies around the world published reports tying Israel to the hijacking, as the vessel was said to have been carrying arms to the Middle East, and possibly Iran....

In July, the Russian-manned cargo ship the Arctic Sea disappeared on its way to take timber from Finland to Algeria, sparking reports of the first incident of piracy in European waters since the days of the buccaneers. Experts and observers weighed in with their theories: the ship had been snatched in a commercial dispute; it was being used to run drugs; it was carrying something more precious — or dangerous — than timber. Since then, the Russian navy has found the ship, and the alleged hijackers who boarded it on July 24 have been charged with kidnapping and piracy. The...

The Russian security service released the crew of the Arctic Sea in Moscow on Sunday. The 11 members of the crew of the hijacked ship were flown from Cape Verde to Russia nearly two weeks ago. The Russian news agency Interfax reports that the men returned to their home town of Archangelsk, where they were met by their families. On Sunday, Russian authorities gave conflicting accounts of whether or not all of the crew would be released. The online portal life.ru reported that only nine members of the crew had been released. Rabbe von Hertzen of the Finnish National Bureau...

can’t say anything about the roots of this story and I don’t plan to dig further… I need to think about my own skin too. Understand that as you will.” —Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian maritime Bulletin Sovfrakht., speaking about the “hijacking” of the Arctic Sea While it might seem like an unusual morphing of the movies Inside Man and The Hunt for Red October, the account of the cargo ship Arctic Sea is far stranger than either fictional account. Based on information developed through our extensive investigation, we can authoritatively state, without hyperbole, that the mysteries surrounding the...

Russia says it tracked hijacked Arctic Sea all along, but questions grow over cargo Tony Halpin in Moscow Russia’s top general hinted today that the ship allegedly hijacked by pirates earlier this month may have been carrying a secret cargo, as it emerged that the country’s Navy tracked the vessel throughout its journey. President Medvedev sent the Russian Navy to find the Arctic Sea after it apparently disappeared while passing through the English Channel en route to Algeria from Finland. However, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow now says that Russian and international agencies had monitored the ship throughout its strange...

Was Israel's secret service behind the mysterious hijacking of a Russian freighter to foil a secret attempt to ship cruise missiles to Iran? The mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Russian freighter in July has taken a new twist with reports claiming the pirates were acting in league with the Israeli Mossad secret service in order to halt a shipment of modern weapon systems hidden on board and destined for Iran. While Israeli and Russian officials dismissed the reports, accounts published in the Russian media sounded more like a spy thriller than a commercial hijacking.

A search is under way for a cargo ship which may have travelled through the English Channel after apparently being hijacked by pirates. Coastguards fear the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea, carrying 15 Russian crew, was hijacked in the Baltic sea. UK authorities made contact before it entered the Strait of Dover but the Russian navy told the Itar-Tass agency it was now looking for the ship. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the situation was "bizarre". Spokesman Mark Clark said: "Who would think that a hijacked ship could pass through one of the most policed and concentrated waters in the world?...

Pirates probably hijacked a merchant ship which disappeared after sailing through the English Channel last month, its operator said on Wednesday.

A former Italian president says his country had allowed Palestinian terror groups to roam free in exchange for not attacking Italian targets. Francesco Cossiga's admission confirmed claims of such a deal revealed last week in an interview in the Corriere della Sera newspaper with Bassam Abu Sharif, the former chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In a letter published Aug. 15 in Corriere della Sera, Cossiga described a "secret 'non-belligerence pact' between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups" such as the PFLP. The deal, he said, had been devised by Prime Minister...

Several U.S. battleships are currently surrounding the Ukrainian ship which was hijacked by Somali pirates last week. Their purpose is to prevent the unloading of the 33 tanks and other military equipment that is currently onboard.  The captain of a hijacked Ukrainian ship being held off the coast of Somalia has died. Conflicting reports suggest he died of heart attack or hypertension. The pirates have initially demanded a ransom of $US35 million, reportedly lowering their demands to $US5 million.