Japanese Oil Tanker Attacked Near Yemen

A Japanese oil tanker has been hit by a rocket:

TOKYO (AP) — An unidentified ship fired on a Japanese oil tanker Monday off the eastern coast of Yemen, leaving a hole from which hundreds of gallons of fuel leaked, the ship’s operator said. No one was injured.

The 150,000-ton tanker Takayama was attacked about 270 miles off the coast of Aden in southwestern Yemen while it was heading for Saudi Arabia, its Japanese operator, Nippon Yusen K.K., said in a statement.

None of its 23 crew members — seven Japanese and 16 Filipinos — was injured, the company said. The tanker had left the South Korean port of Ulsan on April 4.

Update: Several readers have pointed out that the article quoted failed to give credit to the German frigate that chased the prates away.

The tanker Takayama had sent out a radio distress call, ‘Tanker has been shot at and hit by armed boat,’ the German armed forces said near Berlin.

The Emden, a German frigate patrolling the Somali coast as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, picked up the distress call and headed straight to the scene, sending a helicopter ahead to reconnoitre.

The pirates had fled in their speedboat by the time the Navy helicopter arrived at the scene, said a spokesman for the operational command at Potsdam, near Berlin, adding that the mere threat of naval force had been sufficient to make them flee.