Thai Boat Crew Abducted By Pirates

[george]

Thai boat crew abducted by pirates

SATUN: -- Thai marine police officers were yesterday desperately liaising with international piracy suppression units and the Malaysian police after two Thai oil tanker crew members were abducted by pirates demanding ransom money.

According to marine police reports from Thailand's southern province of Satun, a group of pirates, thought to be from the volatile Indonesian province of Aceh, stormed the BPT oil tanker, as it made its way from Thailand's eastern Rayong Province to the southern Krabi Province on 1 June.

When the tanker reached a point around 220 nautical miles from the Satun coast, the heavily-armed pirates managed to kidnap the two Thai crew members and made off with them to Indonesia.

Pol. Lt. Col. Somkiert Jiwtan, a superintendent for the Satun marine police, said that reports suggested that the other members of the crew had been released, but that the fate of the two abducted men remained unknown.

The Satun marine police are now working with the International Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) and the Malaysian marine police to try to help the two kidnapped men.

--TNA 2005-06-04

[Thomas_Merton]

In light of al Qaeda's professed aim of targeting weak links in the global economy, are there any suggestions of a link with Indonesian piracy?

[Pattaya_Fox]

One of the most worrying aspects of the piracy in these waters is the apparent ease of the boarding of these ships and the possibility that terrorists could use a super oil tanker or a ship transporting chemicals as a floating bomb.

Al-Qaeda in the past have been linked with the attacks and attempted attacks on specific targets such as the thwarted planned attack on a US naval vessel in Singapore and the Yemen attack on a French oil tanker.

It has become fairly common over the past few years for so called pirates to abduct crew members and then ask for a ransom from the shipping companies, which is usually paid without any publicity.

Last year four crewmen were murdered by pirates off the coast of Sumatra when the shipping company refused to pay their ransom demand of $12,000 dollars.

[Nam Kao]

Islam again, what a surprize !

Who would have ever guessed?

[Totster]

ooooo... shiver me timbers...

totster

[sonthaya]

Islam again, what a surprize !

  Who would have ever guessed?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would, after working 30 years in the Middle East.

[Thomas_Merton]

Islam again, what a surprize !

  Who would have ever guessed?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would, after working 30 years in the Middle East.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure what you are saying here.

Do you mean that after 30 years of working in the Middle East, you doubt there is any connection between Indonesian piracy and al Qaeda?

If so, on what factual information, have you based such an assertion?

BTW my question was based on recent State Department analyses.

The reason I asked my question was to see if anyone who reads Thaivisa, is taking the possibility of this connection seriously.

Because IMHO the one element of al Qaeda’s strategy that is certain, is that they will strike wherever their threat is not taken seriously.

Edited June 5, 2005 by Thomas_Merton

[otherstuff1957]

There have been pirates in the straits of Malacca and nearby waters for centuries. Now they're using speedboats instead of junks (or Dhows or Schooners), but their stratagies and goals haven't changed.

There's no reason to believe that there is anything more than local greed and immorality here, an Al-Queda connection isn't very likely.

[meom]

BTW my question was based on recent State Department analyses.

The reason I asked my question was to see if anyone who reads Thaivisa, is taking the possibility of this connection seriously.

Because IMHO the one element of al Qaeda’s strategy that is certain, is that they will strike wherever their threat is not taken seriously.

There's always the possibility of a connection. There's a lot of oil sailing through the Malaccan straits so any disruption of this flow will raise eyebrows here and there.

In theory this could be done since the straits is quite narrow at some places although I'm not sure if one grounded supertanker would be enough to block the straits.

Also I'm not sure if it would actually do any damage to the US since most of the oil sailing through the straits goes to Japan, S.Korea and China.

Taking into consideration the strategic reserves of many countries (6-12 months) the only damage would be cosmetic for a few days will rising oil prices.

More, albeit emotional, damage could be done if these pirates were recruited to hijack a tanker in for example the Gulf of Mexico.