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KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian warship was the vessel that helped Chinese sailors repel Somali pirates who had boarded their ship in a dramatic high-seas battle, a maritime watchdog said.
"A Malaysian military helicopter fired warning shots at the pirates' boat. This forced the sea raiders to abandon their operation to hijack the ship," said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Board?s piracy reporting centre.
On Wednesday, a band of pirates boarded the Chinese commercial vessel Zhenhua 4 in the Gulf of Aden but the sailors held them off for several hours.
Their heroic actions gave the international coalition patrolling the pirate-infested region time to seek the assistance of the Malaysian warship KD Inderasakti.
"The coalition forces requested assistance from the Malaysian warship to fight off the pirate attack," Choong said, adding that ?the warship then deployed the helicopter?.
Malaysia had deployed the warship to protect its commercial ships after two vessels were hijacked by pirates in August. A tugboat, said to be Malaysian, was also captured by pirates this week and remains in their hands.
A newly created European Union task force has recently taken over patrols off the Horn of Africa from NATO.
Meanwhile, Shipping company Muhibbah Engineering Bhd has denied that it is the owner of the tugboat reported to have been hijacked by Somali pirates off Yemen.
A Muhibbah Engineering official said the report quoting French petroleum company Total saying the tug belonged to the company could have been due to confusion.
Meanwhile, in Putrajaya, National Security Council (NSC) secretary Datuk Muhammad Hatta Abdul Aziz said a Malaysian owner of the boats has asked the council for advice on handling the crisis.
He said the company informed the NSC of the matter around midday on Wednesday. "The company is handling the case. We are only advising them on how to approach the situation since we have the experience," he told The Star yesterday.
Muhammad Hatta said Wisma Putra had alerted the NSC on the hijacking on Wednesday, adding that the company also called that day to inform the council on the matter.
Increasingly emboldened pirates have carried out more than 100 attacks in the key shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean since the start of this year.
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