Pirates seized a British-flagged chemical tanker and a Panamanian-flagged carrier off Somalia"s coast late Monday and were holding 45 crew members Tuesday, a maritime official said. Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau"s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, said the Bureau is still waiting for the official reports from both ship owners and couldn"t give further details. In another development, pirates released the Singapore-flagged container ship Kota Wajar on Monday, the E.U. Naval Force said. The vessel was hijacked in mid-October in the Indian Ocean north of the Seychelles islands with a crew of 21 on board, according to the Associated Press. Choong said the latest incidents brought the number of attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia to 214 this year, with 47 vessels hijacked and 12 still in the hands of pirates with 263 crew, he added.
