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Five Sirius Star pirates drown in fight over $3million ransom By Lesley Yarranton, sundaymirror.co.uk 11/01/2009 Five of the Somali pirates who hijacked a Saudi supertanker drowned when their boat capsized as they fought over the $3million ransom. Their boat, one of a fleet used to abandon the Sirius Star after holding its 25 crew hostage for two months, overturned as they left with their share of the booty yesterday. An associate at the Somali port of Haradheere near where the tanker was held said: "The wind blew it over then sank it" Three survivors reached shore after swimming for hours,...

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and a relative of one of the dead men said Saturday. Pirate Daud Nure said the boat with eight people on board overturned in a storm after dozens of pirates left the Sirius Star following a two-month standoff in the Gulf of Aden that ended Friday. He said five people died and three people reached shore after swimming for several hours. Daud Nure was not part of...

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and port town resident said Saturday. Pirate Daud Nure says the boat with eight people on board overturned in a storm after dozens of pirates left the Sirius Star following a two-month standoff in the Gulf of Aden that ended Friday.

One of the biggest frustrations facing journalists is being unable to get through to people on the phone. But as Mary Harper discovered, contacting the Somali pirates on the Sirius Star turned out to be child's play. It was a cold, dark, wet and miserable Sunday afternoon. I was in my car, driving my 12-year-old daughter and her friend back from a birthday party. I was tired and fed up from being in the car. "Mummy, mummy," trilled a voice from the back. "I want to phone the pirates.

U.S. Woman Negotiating With Somali Pirates Virginia Businesswoman Michele Ballarin Returned Just Last Week From Somalia By MARTHA RADDATZ and RICHARD COOLIDGE Nov. 27, 2008 An American businesswoman with connections to U.S. intelligence and the military has been talking with the Somali pirates who have commandeered the Saudi oil tanker Sirius Star, trying to get the ship released, ABC News has confirmed. Michele Ballarin, an american businesswoman with connections to U.S. intelligence and the military, has been talking with the Somali pirates who have commandeered the Saudi oil tanker Sirius Star, trying to get the ship released, ABC News has...

"Sir, you have done India proud." That was how the anchorman of a television channel in Delhi addressed the Indian navy chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, on the victorious sea battle by warship INS Tabar with would-be hijackers as dusk was falling on Tuesday evening in the Gulf of Aden. Those words would have made Sir Francis Drake, the 16th-century British navigator and slaver-politician of the Elizabethan era, truly envious. Sir Francis had bigger claims to fame in a life cut short by dysentery while attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1595. Unsurprisingly, the patriotic Indian media dutifully expressed its gratitude...

Gone are the swashbuckling days of repelling pirates with cutlasses -- a British firm is spearheading use of a high-tech "sonic laser" to beat bandits on the high seas. The piracy problems of shipping firms running through the Gulf of Aden and down Africa's east coast have been thrown into the spotlight this week by the seizure of the Saudi Arabian super-tanker Sirius Star. But help could be at hand in the form of a long range acoustic device (LRAD) -- hooked up to a humble MP3 player. About the size of a domestic satellite dish, LRADs blast the target...

Armed Islamists will attack pirates, says militant Last Updated: Friday, November 21, 2008 | 3:08 PM ET A group of armed Islamist militants is reportedly headed to a Somali port Friday to attack pirates holding hostage a massive Saudi Arabian oil tanker.Ships belonging to Muslim countries should not be seized, Abdelghafar Musa, a fighter with the Islamist group al-Shabab, told the Associated Press. This undated picture taken at an unknown location shows the Saudi oil supertanker MV Sirius Star, which has been hijacked by Somali pirates. (Christian Duys/Associated Press)"We are really sorry to hear that the Saudi ship has...

Energy: Piracy has always been a shipping hazard, but Somalia's buccaneers have taken it up a notch. Their hijacking of a supertanker Monday shows how vulnerable oil supplies are and how critical it is to stop them.Events around the Horn of Africa are often bellwethers of trouble. The terror attacks on the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies in East Africa presaged 9/11. Saturday's unprecedented attack on a 319,000-ton supertanker with $100 million in oil could be a warning of a new threat to world energy. The Somali pirates who launched the attack on a Saudi-flagged carrier hijacked the largest...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2008 – Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said he was shocked by the piracy of a Saudi Arabian supertanker 450 nautical miles off the coast of Kenya in the Arabian Sea. Mullen, speaking during a Pentagon news conference today, said the Sirius Star was attacked more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya. News reports indicate the pirates have hijacked the ship and are heading for the Somali port of Eyl. The ship is owned by a Saudi Arabian oil company and flagged in Liberia. Its crew of 25 includes citizens of Croatia, Great Britain, The Philippines,...