How Nigerian Navy Stormed Hijacked Diesel-Ladden Tanker, Rescued Hostages

In what was described as the first big success in international maritime cooperation in the pirate-ridden and oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, the Nigerian Navy at the recently stormed a diesel-ladden tanker hijacked by pirates, killed one of the pirates and rescued the hostages.

The naval commodore in charge of United States operations in Africa and Europe, Capt. Heidi Agle told The Associated Press that the operation was supposed to be a US-led naval training maneuver off the coast of West Africa when real-life drama intervened, with pirates taking over an oil tanker and turning the exercise into a rescue mission.

The rescue was directed by Nigerian Rear Admiral Henry Babalola, who told the AP that it was made possible by a maritime agreement allowing Nigeria to patrol Sao Tome’s waters.

“When we challenged them (the pirates), they said that they were in international waters” with the law of the sea on their side. But the agreement allowed the Nigerians to storm the ship after eight hours of attempted negotiations. “International cooperation is the new mantra for maritime security,” Babalola said. “We cannot go it alone.”

Navies from the United States, Ghana, Togo and Nigeria tracked the hijacked tanker through waters off five countries before Nigerian naval forces stormed aboard amid a shootout that killed one of the pirates.

It was the first big success in international maritime cooperation in the pirate-ridden Gulf of Guinea, the commodore in charge of US operations in Africa and Europe told AP.

Agle had been directing a training exercise against piracy with maritime agencies of Ghana when the hijacking provided a real-life lesson, she said in a telephone interview at the weekend from her base in Italy.

First word came from the French Embassy, which sent information to Agle’s USNS Spearhead via Ghanaian officials and US diplomats of a possible pirate ship loitering off Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

There, pirates seized the Dubai-owned MT Maximus, on lease to a South Korean company and carrying 4,700 tons of diesel fuel, on February 11.

The Spearhead tracked down the hijacked Maximus, identified it and then monitored its progress for two days as it sailed from Ivorian into Ghanaian waters.

Then Agle handed over to Ghana’s Navy, which continued to shadow the ship until it entered the waters of Togo, when that country’s navy took over.

As the pirates steamed across the gulf toward the tiny island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, officials there contacted the Nigerian government for help.

The tanker had sailed nearly 800 miles (1,280 kilometers) before the Nigerians made the assault.

Dirk Steffen, maritime security director of Denmarkbased Risk Intelligence, agreed the operation was “the first anti-piracy success in the region of this scale.”

“Never has a West African navy carried out an opposed boarding before,” he said.