Oil Tanker Piracy - it's started, and Pirate's range is expanding

“I’m stunned by the range of it, less so than I am the size,” he said. That is the farthest out at sea that a ship has been seized in the latest surge of piracies, he said. The pirates, Mullen said, are “very good at what they do. They’re very well armed. Tactically, they are very good... And so, once they get to a point where they can board, it becomes very difficult to get them off, because, clearly, now they hold hostages.”
He declined to say if the US navy was considering taking action to rescue the tanker.

clipped from www.saudigazette.com.sa DUBAI – Pirates on Monday attacked and took control of Saudi Aramco’s new oil supertanker Sirius Star off the coast of Kenya, a spokesman for the US Navy 5th fleet said. It was being taken to the pirate haven of Eyl, in northern Somalia, the spokesman said. Northern Somalia’s breakaway Puntland region, where Eyl is located, was on the lookout for the ship. The tanker, which is owned by Saudi Aramco, came under attack more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya. The ship, three times the size of an aircraft carrier, carried 25 crew members from Croatia, Great Britain, Phillippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia, the spokesman said.