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Dr. John Smith
 
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Default Pirates of the Malacca Straits

KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 (Xinhuanet) -- The pirates who abducted three crew
members from the Japanese tugboat Idaten in the Malacca Straits Monday,
disguised themselves as local fishermen to evade police check, a police
officer said Wednesday.
The crew who were safe in the attack had informed that the pirates used
three local fishing boats to approach the tugboat, Malaysia Maritime
Enforcement Coordination Center Director, First Admiral Abdul Hadi Abdul
Rashid, told reporters after closing a naval exercise in Penang State.

"In our enforcement operations, we only inspect foreign fishing vessels
which encroach our waters and not local ones. It is impossible for us to
check all boats in our waters within a short time," he said.

He said because of the disguise, a patrol vessel which was partof the
exercise and about 15 nautical miles east of the location of the attack
could not respond in time.

Abdul Hadi said investigations found the boats to be Malaysian-owned but
with false registration numbers and the owners were being traced.

He was commenting on the attack in which the Idaten's captain Nobouo
Indue, 54, chief engineer Shunji Kuroda, 51, both Japanese, and a Filipino
engineer Sadang Paliawan, 41, were kidnapped.

The Idaten with a crew of 11 was towing a construction barge, Kuroshio
1, which had a 150-man crew and was carrying undersea pipe laying equipment
from Batam in Indonesia to Myanmar when it came under attack.

The attack is believed to be the work of the same pirates who preyed on
two other vessels in the Straits of Malacca over the past two weeks.

The incidents also happened in roughly the same area which is only about
20 nautical miles off the maritime borders of Indonesia and Malaysia,
enabling them to make quick get-aways.

Last Saturday, 35 pirates armed with machine guns and rocket launchers
stormed a tanker which was on its way from Samirinda in Kalimantan to
Belawan in Sumatra. The captain and chief engineer were abducted.

On March 2, four men in a fishing boat kidnapped a tugboat captain and
his Indonesian chief officer.

The Straits of Malacca is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world
with an estimated 50,000 vessels carrying all types cargoes using it
annually. Enditem ?