SOMALI PIRATES KILL FIVE CREW BEFORE TANKER RESCUE

Somali pirates killed five crew members aboard the hijacked oil tanker MT Honour 25 before security forces retook the vessel, Puntland officials said. The Puntland Information Ministry and Deputy Information Minister Bile Qabowsade said the dead included three Pakistani nationals, one Indian national and one national of Myanmar. Four other crew members, three Pakistanis and one Indian, were injured. Puntland's rescue operation captured 16 suspected pirates, with officials saying others had escaped and were being pursued. The tanker, flying the Palau flag and carrying about 18,500 barrels of oil, had been seized by six armed men off the Somali coast on 21 April.

The vessel was anchored near the Somali coast between the fishing towns of Xaafun and Bander Beyla, in the semi-autonomous Puntland region. Officials said the oil was destined for Mogadishu. At the time of the hijacking in April, officials had given the crew complement as 17, including 10 Pakistanis, four Indonesians, one Indian, one Sri Lankan and one Myanmar national, a figure that differs from the breakdown given in the killings announcement. The Puntland Maritime Police Force said the tanker was safe and under government control, with efforts continuing to trace others involved. Authorities have not detailed how the crew were killed or how the pirates initially took control.

The killings are reported to be the first deaths at the hands of Somali pirates in more than a decade, amid what officials and analysts describe as a resurgence of piracy off Somalia's coast following its sharp decline after 2011. The rescue follows a separate operation the previous week in which Puntland's maritime police freed the Sibu 1, a US-sanctioned tanker hijacked by pirates in August. Of 41 suspected pirates arrested in that earlier operation, 28 later escaped while being transferred to jail, prompting some Puntland security officials to allege complicity by local police. Qabowsade rejected suggestions that Puntland forces had assisted any pirates' escape in the Honour 25 case.