Pirates fire on U.S. cruise ship in hijack attempt

The luxury American cruise ship teeming with hundreds of tourists just might have been too much for the Somali pirates to resist.

But the bandits, riding in two skiffs and firing rifle shots at the gleaming ship, were outrun in minutes when the captain of M/S Nautica gunned the engine and sped away in the Gulf of Aden, a spokesman for the company said Tuesday.

Still, the implications had the pirates hijacked the ship add a new dimension to the piracy scourge as NATO foreign ministers groped for solutions at a meeting in Brussels, and the United Nations extended an international piracy-fighting mandate for another year.

The potential for massive ransom payments from the families of hundreds of rich tourists on a pleasure cruise might encourage similar attempts, especially following the successful capture in recent weeks of a Ukrainian cargo ship laden with tanks and a Saudi oil tanker.

Sunday’s attack on the M/S Nautica comes several weeks after a NATO mission served mainly to underscore the impotence of the world community: A handful of Western ships can do little to prevent attacks in a vast sea, and without the right to board hijacked vessels, they can only watch as the booty is towed to port.

“It is very fortunate that the liner managed to escape,” said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Malaysia, urging all ships in the area to remain vigilant.