Nervous shippers ask for blockade

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Shipping officials from around the world called Monday for a military blockade along Somalia’s coast to intercept pirate vessels heading out to sea. Yemen’s government said Somali pirates have seized another ship.

Peter Swift, managing director of the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners, said stronger naval action – including aerial support – is necessary to battle piracy in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia.

But NATO, which has four warships off the coast of Somalia, rejected a blockade.

Some 20 tankers sail through the sea lane daily. But many tanker owners are considering a massive detour around southern Africa, which will delay delivery and push costs up by 30 percent, Swift said.

The association, whose members own 2,900 tankers or 75 percent of the world’s fleet, opposes attempts to arm merchant ships because it could escalate the violence and put crew members at even greater risk, he said.

“The other option is perhaps putting a blockade around Somalia and introducing the idea of intercepting vessels leaving Somalia rather than to try to protect the whole of the Gulf of Aden,” Swift said.

The Gulf of Aden, off Somalia, connects to the Red Sea, which in turn is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal. The route is thousands of miles and many days shorter than traveling around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

Somali pirates have become increasingly brazen, seizing eight vessels in the past two weeks, including a huge Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil.

On Monday, Yemen’s Interior Ministry said Somali pirates had hijacked a Yemeni cargo ship, Adina, in the Arabian Sea. It said communication with the vessel was lost last Tuesday.

A blockade along Somalia’s 2,400 mile coastline would not be easy.

U.S. Gen. John Craddock, NATO’s supreme allied commander, said the alliance’s mandate is solely to escort World Food Program ships to Somalia and to conduct anti-piracy patrols.