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Pirate attacks surge near Indonesia
Pirates clad in black and armed with a fleet of motorcycles speed boats staged daring raids on shipping while one crewman suffered knife wounds in a new surge in attacks off Indonesia, maritime watchdogs said Wednesday.
"Yar, we be pyrates!"
Seven reports of serious incidents on vessels in waters off Indonesia were compiled by the International Maritime Bureau for the last week of October -- a significant rise in an area which usually sees two or three attacks per week. The Bureau has repeatedly warned of attempts to hijack ships in the Malacca Strait, which runs along the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and carries half the world's oil supplies and a third of global trade. Indonesian naval officials, who contribute to three-nation patrols of the Strait, have said the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah militants have plotted to target ships in the hope of using them as floating bombs.
In one incident last Tuesday, eight speedboats piloted by men in black descended on a container vessel at the northern entrance of the Strait, prompting crewmen to ward off the attackers with fire hoses. An identical raid was staged a day later by pirates, also in black, at the helm of speedboats elsewhere in the Strait, but they were again repelled by water jets. It was not clear if the same attackers were involved. Another attempt was foiled on Thursday off the coast of Indonesian Borneo, but one crewman suffered knife injuries in the attack, the Bureau said on its website.
In August, Indonesian naval commander Vice Admiral Didik Herupurnomo said the joint patrols of his fleet and the navies of Malaysia and Singapore had begun squeezing pirates out of the region since they began in July.
Guess he was wrong.

Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-11-04
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=47790