Armed Spanish trawler repels pirate attack

[Guest]

Courtesy of EUBusiness @ http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/somalia-shipping.3h3

Armed Spanish trawler repels pirate attack
04 March 2010, 11:57 CET

(BRUSSELS) - Armed, private security guards aboard a Spanish trawler repelled an attack by pirates using rocket-propelled grenades in the Indian Ocean on Thursday, naval forces and Spanish sources said.

The European Union's naval mission to the waters off Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, said that "earlier this morning, 4 March, the 2,100-tonne Spanish fishing vessel Albacan was attacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean.

"The Albacan, owned by Albacora, and registered in Cadiz, was fishing half way between the Seychelles and the Kenyan coast (off Mombasa) when it was approached by two pirate skiffs."

A statement by EU-NAVFOR said one of the skiffs "fired a rocket-propelled grenade that exploded on the deck of the fishing vessel," but that "private security armed guards" fired back "over the heads of the pirate skiff" and the attackers fled.

"All crewmembers are unharmed," the naval mission added.

The Spanish fisheries federation said the attack took place at 0730 GMT some 350 nautical miles (650 kilometres) off Kenya, with Spanish media citing an exchange of gunfire and a fire, rapidly extinguished, in the kitchen caused by the grenade.

Last year, 16 Spanish crew members of a tuna trawler, the Alakrana, were held for more than a month by Somali pirates before a four-million-dollar (2.9-million-euro) ransom was paid.

The Spanish government has authorised the use of armed guards, as opposed to assigning military personnel the way France has, for instance.

(Post#1)

[Morten]

HAH! So they are big and scary pirates with guns and RPGs, but as soon as someone fights back, they run away like the cowards they are!

Also, I think this shows how relatively harmless an RPG is! It seems like there were no major damage, just a small fire - and that is the deal with an RPG. It produce a concentrated jet of very hot molten copper. So it's hot and can ignite flammable material, but it isn't the explosive warhead many people thinks! When hitting a ship, it isn't any more dangerous than a regular bullet. It takes a direct hit to seriously hurt someone with an RPG. Though I will admit that it probably is a very frightening thing to be shot at with if you don't know what it is and what it does. But for me, it's not nearly as scary as being held at gunpoint by a bunch of khat-chewing pirates!