A Singapore-flagged ship, Kota Wajar, was hijacked in the Indian Ocean on Thursday 15 Oct 2009 off the Seychelles. On board were 21 crew, including two Singapore Permanent Residents (SPRs).
Kota Wajar, callsign Sierra Six Bravo Tango (S6BT), is a 184-metre long container ship en route from Singapore to Mombasa, Kenya. Note the generally low freeboard that would have facilitated boarding of S6BT from small craft.
The hijackings of two Malaysian ships off Somalia in August 2008 took about a month-and-a-half to resolve and saw the deployment of the frigate KD Lekiu and landing ship tank KD Inderapura with PASKAL special forces embarked. The deployment was called Operation Fajr (Arabic for "Dawn").
Are our ships still there? I know that the RSN was in charge of TF 151? for a while.
ReplyDeleteThe RSN Ship is back in Singapore in July 09. I think RSN will be in charge of TF 151 from Jan till Mar 2010. See link attached.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/publications/cyberpioneer/features/2009/sep09_fs2.html
Wonder if our country will response, to rescue the Singapore registered container vessel?
^ The two of you overestimate the impact Navy ships have on piracy in the gulf of aden. RSN made no impact whatsoever on how the incident was resolved. Besides, simply providing the crew with a couple of M-16s would have been manifestly more effective and less of a unnecessary burden on taxpayers than sending RSN's weekend sailors out on what is essentially a cruise trip.
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