Date:23/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/23/stories/2008112356661600.htm

International

"Saudi supertanker hijacking un-Islamic"

Atul Aneja

DUBAI: The hijacking of the Saudi oil supertanker has brought into focus a key Somali militant group, which has called the piracy un-Islamic.

The Al-Shabab group, which is the militant youth wing of the Somalia's main opposition Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), has vowed to fight the pirates of the supertanker Sirius Star because the ship belongs to Saudi Arabia, a Muslim county.

"We are really sorry to hear that the Saudi ship has been held in Somalia," said Abdelghafar Musa, Al-Shabab's spokesman. "We will fight them," he said.

UIC spokesman Abdi Rahim Isse Addow told Reuters: "Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and hijacking its ship is a bigger crime than other ships."

The pirates have forced the ship to anchor near the Somali port of Haradheere. Eyewitnesses in the town said that fighters had arrived in the town to search for pirates "and the whereabouts of the Saudi ship."

Meanwhile, the Saudiowned daily Asharq Al Awsat quoted one of the hijackers, Jameh Adam, as saying that 40 pirates had taken charge of the ship. He added that the 25-member crew of the Sirius Star is "safe [and] that they [the crew] moved freely on board and ate from the food stocks on the ship."

Asked how pirates managed to track commercial ships before boarding them, he said: "We have radars to locate the ship and collaborators in Kenya, Sri Lanka, Yemen and Dubai."

He pointed out that the hijackers took ransom only in cash, which was then shared by pirates and poor families displaced by the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in 2006 in support of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), and forces loyal to the UIC.