\n<\/p>\n
Mogadishu, Somalia — <\/span>Suspected Somali pirates have hijacked a fuel tanker off the northeastern coast of Somalia, according to a local official and the British military.<\/p>\n The ship was seized on Wednesday in waters between the coastal towns of Hafun and Bandarbeyla in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland along the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n A colonel of the Puntland Maritime Police Force told The Associated Press that the tanker had departed from the port of Berbera and was heading towards the Somali capital Mogadishu when it was stopped. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to a journalist.<\/p>\n The official said the kidnapping was carried out by six armed men from Bandarbeyla district.<\/p>\n The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations also issued a statement reporting the kidnapping incident off the Somali coast. It said unauthorized persons had taken control of the tanker and were moving it “to the south within Somali territorial waters.”<\/p>\n According to the Puntland official, the ship, owned by Pakistani interests and chartered by local traders, was carrying a large consignment of fuel. It was not possible to verify how many people were on board the plane.<\/p>\n Local authorities and Puntland security forces are under pressure from community leaders to secure the release of the ship and its crew. There was no immediate indication of a ransom demand.<\/p>\n Piracy off the coast of Somalia, once one of the most dangerous in the world, has declined significantly over the past decade due to international naval patrols and improved maritime security. However, sporadic incidents continue to raise concerns about a possible resurgence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mogadishu, Somalia — Suspected Somali pirates have hijacked a fuel tanker off the northeastern coast of Somalia, according to a local official and the British military. The ship was seized on Wednesday in waters between the coastal towns of Hafun and Bandarbeyla in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland along the Indian Ocean. A colonel of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[420,1106,24978,415,22044,3061,10994,269],"class_list":{"0":"post-97379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-capital","9":"tag-heading","10":"tag-hijack","11":"tag-oil","12":"tag-pirates","13":"tag-ship","14":"tag-somali","15":"tag-suspected"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97392,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97379\/revisions\/97392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}