Dun mess with them okay?
CHINESE SAILORS BATTLE SOMALI RAIDERS
They fight off pirates with Molotov cocktails, hose
December 22, 2008 Print Ready Email Article
THE pirates were armed with rocket launchers and machine guns.
But Captain Peng Weiyuan and his determined crew refused to back down.
The captain of Chinese ship Zhenhua 4 told the BBC on Friday how he and his 27-man crew managed to beat back a gang of heavily-armed Somali pirates with only home-made bombs and a water cannon.
The nine pirates had launched their attack in two speedboats in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday.
Zhenhua 4 belongs to the China Communications Construction Co, and is registered in the Caribbean island of St Vincent.
Speaking by satellite phone from the Indian Ocean, Capt Peng told the BBC's Newshour programme: 'They opened fire, they wanted us to stop.'
He said the crew yelled at the pirates to 'go away, but they were very fast'.
Capt Peng then tried to manoeuvre the cargo vessel but the pirates still managed to climb aboard by putting ladders on the ship's side.
He said seven pirates got onto the ship and two others remained behind.
He described them as 'very threatening'.
Pulling back
Instead of giving up, Capt Peng said the crew retreated to their living quarters - which include their sleeping rooms, mess rooms and recreation area - which overlook the deck.
Faced with the enemy's superior firepower, the ship's crew came up with a clever solution.
Said Capt Peng: 'We had a lot of beer bottles and we made a lot of cocktail (petrol) bombs.
'We were well-prepared. We threw them at them (the pirates).'
For a while, it seemed to work, and the pirate appeared to retreat.
But the crew's home-made arsenal was eventually no match for the pirates' 'anti-tank weapons' and the raiders eventually fought their way to the crew's living quarters.
Said Capt Peng: 'They came to the first platform which is very close to our living quarters.
'We were locked inside and the door was very thick. They were shouting: 'Open the door!'
'So we climbed further up and we used everything to threaten them, bottles, petrol.'
The crew even turned to using a high-pressure water hose to keep the pirates back.
Capt Peng said the pirates returned fire and 'one bullet passed me 10 inches (25cm) away'.
He added that by then, the scene on the boat was chaotic - 'there was smoke, there was fire'.
But after a five-hour standoff, the pirates eventually gave up and decided to abandon the ship.
Capt Peng said: 'The head of the pirates said: 'Stop, stop, we can't go on fighting any more. Let us go'. And I said: 'We will let you go. Leave our ship'.'
In a strange turnabout, he said the pirates then asked for shoes because they were barefoot and the deck was covered in broken glass.
The crew obliged and flung down several pairs of leather shoes.
The pirates descended from the ship and sped off in their boats, but then returned a few minutes later to ask for fuel, which they were also given.
Capt Peng added that during the fighting, the crew managed to radio for help.
Two helicopters and a warship from the Royal Malaysian Navy arrived about 1 1/2 hours later.
The Malaysian forces opened fire at the pirates and 'helped us succeed', said Capt Peng.
Mr Noel Choong, who heads the piracy reporting centre based in Kuala Lumpur, said the attack occurred in the same area where a Malaysian-owned tugboat and a Turkish vessel were seized on Tuesday.
Failed hijacking
He told Xinhua News Agency: 'The Chinese ship is very fortunate to have escaped. This is a rare case where pirates have successfully boarded the ship but failed to hijack it.'
Royal Malaysian Navy Fleet Operations Commander Vice-Admiral Datuk Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin said he and his men happened to be patrolling the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden when they received Zhenhua 4's distress call.
He told The Star that they were told to 'lend assistance and do whatever was necessary to deter the pirates because we were the nearest vessel' to the troubled ship.
Somali pirates have hijacked over 40 vessels off Somalia's coastline this year.
Many of the seizures took place in the Gulf of Aden that lies between Somalia and Yemen - one of the world's busiest waterways with about 20,000 ships sailing through each year.
The attack on Zhenhua 4 is also the latest in a rising number of attacks by Somali pirates on Chinese vessels.
In November, a Chinese fishing vessel was attacked while off the coast of Kenya.
Including this incident, Mr Choong said there have so far been 109 attacks this year off the coast of Somalia, with 42 hijackings.
Iranian warship joins anti-pirate patrol in area
AN Iranian warship arrived in the Gulf of Aden yesterday to join the three NATO and Russian vessels and up to 15 other warships from a multi-national force patrolling the area.
The warship is there to protect Iranian interests in the gulf, the way the Chinese have been beefing up their presence there, reported Xinhua News Agency.
In November, Somali pirates had hijacked a Hong Kong cargo ship which was chartered by an Iranian company.
The same month, pirates tried to hijack the MS Nautica, a US-based cruise ship on its way to Singapore.
The 1,000-passenger ship, which docked in Singapore on Friday, managed to escape the pirate attack by using a long-range acoustic device - which blasts a painful wave of sound - to distract the pirates.
In response to such attacks, the US has pledged to help tackle Somalia's internal problems, which have contributed to the surge inpiracy.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told AP: 'Once peace and normalcy have returned to Somalia, we believe that economic development can return to Somalia.
'This current response is a good start.'
The resolution sets up the possibility of increased American military action in Somalia, which has not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictatorship and then turned on one another.
Somali civilians have suffered most from the violence surrounding the insurgency, with thousands killed or maimed by mortar shells, machinegun crossfire and grenades.
An estimated 1 million people have been forced to leave their homes.
At the same time, a support economy has grown up in port towns flush with ransom cash.
Pirates have made an estimated US$30million ($43.8 million) hijacking ships for ransom this year, seizing 40vessels off Somalia's coastline.
CHINESE SAILORS BATTLE SOMALI RAIDERS
They fight off pirates with Molotov cocktails, hose
December 22, 2008 Print Ready Email Article
THE pirates were armed with rocket launchers and machine guns.
But Captain Peng Weiyuan and his determined crew refused to back down.
The captain of Chinese ship Zhenhua 4 told the BBC on Friday how he and his 27-man crew managed to beat back a gang of heavily-armed Somali pirates with only home-made bombs and a water cannon.
The nine pirates had launched their attack in two speedboats in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday.
Zhenhua 4 belongs to the China Communications Construction Co, and is registered in the Caribbean island of St Vincent.
Speaking by satellite phone from the Indian Ocean, Capt Peng told the BBC's Newshour programme: 'They opened fire, they wanted us to stop.'
He said the crew yelled at the pirates to 'go away, but they were very fast'.
Capt Peng then tried to manoeuvre the cargo vessel but the pirates still managed to climb aboard by putting ladders on the ship's side.
He said seven pirates got onto the ship and two others remained behind.
He described them as 'very threatening'.
Pulling back
Instead of giving up, Capt Peng said the crew retreated to their living quarters - which include their sleeping rooms, mess rooms and recreation area - which overlook the deck.
Faced with the enemy's superior firepower, the ship's crew came up with a clever solution.
Said Capt Peng: 'We had a lot of beer bottles and we made a lot of cocktail (petrol) bombs.
'We were well-prepared. We threw them at them (the pirates).'
For a while, it seemed to work, and the pirate appeared to retreat.
But the crew's home-made arsenal was eventually no match for the pirates' 'anti-tank weapons' and the raiders eventually fought their way to the crew's living quarters.
Said Capt Peng: 'They came to the first platform which is very close to our living quarters.
'We were locked inside and the door was very thick. They were shouting: 'Open the door!'
'So we climbed further up and we used everything to threaten them, bottles, petrol.'
The crew even turned to using a high-pressure water hose to keep the pirates back.
Capt Peng said the pirates returned fire and 'one bullet passed me 10 inches (25cm) away'.
He added that by then, the scene on the boat was chaotic - 'there was smoke, there was fire'.
But after a five-hour standoff, the pirates eventually gave up and decided to abandon the ship.
Capt Peng said: 'The head of the pirates said: 'Stop, stop, we can't go on fighting any more. Let us go'. And I said: 'We will let you go. Leave our ship'.'
In a strange turnabout, he said the pirates then asked for shoes because they were barefoot and the deck was covered in broken glass.
The crew obliged and flung down several pairs of leather shoes.
The pirates descended from the ship and sped off in their boats, but then returned a few minutes later to ask for fuel, which they were also given.
Capt Peng added that during the fighting, the crew managed to radio for help.
Two helicopters and a warship from the Royal Malaysian Navy arrived about 1 1/2 hours later.
The Malaysian forces opened fire at the pirates and 'helped us succeed', said Capt Peng.
Mr Noel Choong, who heads the piracy reporting centre based in Kuala Lumpur, said the attack occurred in the same area where a Malaysian-owned tugboat and a Turkish vessel were seized on Tuesday.
Failed hijacking
He told Xinhua News Agency: 'The Chinese ship is very fortunate to have escaped. This is a rare case where pirates have successfully boarded the ship but failed to hijack it.'
Royal Malaysian Navy Fleet Operations Commander Vice-Admiral Datuk Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin said he and his men happened to be patrolling the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden when they received Zhenhua 4's distress call.
He told The Star that they were told to 'lend assistance and do whatever was necessary to deter the pirates because we were the nearest vessel' to the troubled ship.
Somali pirates have hijacked over 40 vessels off Somalia's coastline this year.
Many of the seizures took place in the Gulf of Aden that lies between Somalia and Yemen - one of the world's busiest waterways with about 20,000 ships sailing through each year.
The attack on Zhenhua 4 is also the latest in a rising number of attacks by Somali pirates on Chinese vessels.
In November, a Chinese fishing vessel was attacked while off the coast of Kenya.
Including this incident, Mr Choong said there have so far been 109 attacks this year off the coast of Somalia, with 42 hijackings.
Iranian warship joins anti-pirate patrol in area
AN Iranian warship arrived in the Gulf of Aden yesterday to join the three NATO and Russian vessels and up to 15 other warships from a multi-national force patrolling the area.
The warship is there to protect Iranian interests in the gulf, the way the Chinese have been beefing up their presence there, reported Xinhua News Agency.
In November, Somali pirates had hijacked a Hong Kong cargo ship which was chartered by an Iranian company.
The same month, pirates tried to hijack the MS Nautica, a US-based cruise ship on its way to Singapore.
The 1,000-passenger ship, which docked in Singapore on Friday, managed to escape the pirate attack by using a long-range acoustic device - which blasts a painful wave of sound - to distract the pirates.
In response to such attacks, the US has pledged to help tackle Somalia's internal problems, which have contributed to the surge inpiracy.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told AP: 'Once peace and normalcy have returned to Somalia, we believe that economic development can return to Somalia.
'This current response is a good start.'
The resolution sets up the possibility of increased American military action in Somalia, which has not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictatorship and then turned on one another.
Somali civilians have suffered most from the violence surrounding the insurgency, with thousands killed or maimed by mortar shells, machinegun crossfire and grenades.
An estimated 1 million people have been forced to leave their homes.
At the same time, a support economy has grown up in port towns flush with ransom cash.
Pirates have made an estimated US$30million ($43.8 million) hijacking ships for ransom this year, seizing 40vessels off Somalia's coastline.
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