Japanese tugboat attacked, crew kidnapped in Malacca Strait

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Three crewmen were kidnapped after pirates attacked a Japanese tugboat in the Malacca Strait, three days after a gas tanker came under a similar attack in the area, a piracy watchdog said.

"The tugboat's crew have put out a distress call. The attack is going on now," Noel Choong, regional manager of the Piracy Reporting Centre of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), told AFP at 7:20 pm (1120 GMT).

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Choong reported earlier Monday that a gang of 35 pirates armed with machine guns and rocket launchers seized a fully-laden gas tanker in the strait at the weekend, rekindling fears of a terrorist attack in the vital waterway.

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kirei_na_me said:

Japanese tugboat attacked, crew kidnapped in Malacca Strait



Wow, pirates have come a long way since Blackbeard's day.

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Safety of the 3 Hostages Confirmed​

Japanese Foreign Ministry officials have confirmed the 3 crewmembers abducted from a Japanese tugboat on March 14 in the Malacca Strait are now safe.
The Foreign Ministry says its officials and the president of the shipping company for which the 3 men work met them in a hotel in southern Thailand on Monday.
Japanese captain Nobuo Inoue, chief engineer Shunji Kuroda, and Filipino engineer Edgardo Sadang from the tugboat Idaten were kidnapped last Monday.
The ministry says its officials will escort the 3 crewmembers out of the area after local police finish questioning them about the attack.

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Japanese-owned ship attacked by pirates in Malacca Strait​

Pirates attacked a Japanese-owned cargo ship in the Malacca Strait early on Friday, the second Japanese vessel targeted in less than a month in the strait.

The pirates took away a safe containing cash but all crew members were unharmed.

The International Maritime Bureau said the Panamanian-registered ship "Ocean Bridge", operated by a Tokyo-based firm, was attacked off Port Klang, west of the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysian maritime police said the ship left Port Klang on Thursday. Shortly after entering the Malacca Strait, three pirates approached in a small boat, boarded the ship and took away the safe. The pirates were reportedly armed with guns, but the 21 Filipino crewmembers on board were unharmed.

Four pirate attacks have occurred in the Malacca Strait in the last month. They included a raid on the Japanese tugboat "Idaten" on March 14, in which two Japanese and one Filipino crewmember were abducted and later released.

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