French Navy helps free Indian boat off Somalia

October 7th, 2009 Somali pirates attack French military vesselPARIS — Somali pirates in two skiffs fired on a French navy vessel early Wednesday after apparently mistaking it for a commercial boat, the French military said. The French ship gave chase and captured five suspected pirates.

October 4th, 2009 Spain: hijacked fishing boat makes port in SomaliaMADRID — A hijacked trawler has been taken to port in Somalia with pirates still in charge of the vessel, the Spanish government said Sunday. The Spanish-owned fishing boat Alakrana was hijacked by pirates early Friday.

August 11th, 2009 Sarkozy: 6 aid workers released in SomaliaPARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office says six people linked to a French aid group have been released after nine months in captivity in Somalia. Sarkozy's office, in a statement Tuesday, welcomed the release of the four Europeans and two Kenyans working for the aid group Action Contre la Faim.

July 21st, 2009 France could use force to free Somalia hostagesPARIS — France's foreign minister says the country doesn't rule out sending commandos to try to free two French security advisers held hostage in Somalia. Bernard Kouchner says the two men are being held separately, apparently by two different militant groups.

July 16th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Indian and French navies have helped free a small boat with 14 Indians on board that was hijacked by Somalian pirates last week, an official said here Thursday. The small boat was hijacked by the pirates off the Somalian coast Friday and was freed Wednesday after a joint operation by the two navies, the official said.

July 16th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Mounting pressure from Indian and French navies forced Somali pirates to release an Indian dhow hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. Seeing the movement of the Indian and French warships and anticipating a combined operation, the pirates forced the dhow to close the Somali coast and released the dhow at on July 15, escaping in their skiffs, after robbing the crew of all their cash and valuables.

July 14th, 2009 Witnesses: 2 French journalists seized in SomaliaMOGADISHU, Somalia — Gunmen kidnapped two French journalists from their hotel in the Somali capital Tuesday, the hotel manager and an eyewitness said. Abdi Mohamed Ahmed, who owns a teashop in front of the Sahafi Hotel in Mogadishu, said about 10 gunmen arrived in pickup trucks and a small car and disarmed the hotel guards.

July 9th, 2009 ARUSHA, Tanzania — An official from a Tanzanian island says the French navy has arrived to assist with the search for remains of a plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean with 153 people aboard. Only one person survived last week's crash off the coast of Comoros and currents are believed to have carried debris from the plane and bodies over 500 miles (800 kilometers) to the shores of Tanzania.

June 10th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Post the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, the Indian Navy is taking tips from the French, the Australians and the Israelis to ramp up coastal security in the country without infringing the rights of people, a top official said. With the attacks bringing to the fore the lacunae in the security of India's 7,516-km shoreline and the overlap of multiple enforcement agencies for coastal security, the navy is all set to take a leaf out of the 200-year-old French coastal security system.

June 7th, 2009 US Navy sending locators to French for plane crashWASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy is sending two high-tech devices to French ships that will help them locate the black box flight recorders for the Air France plane that crashed nearly a week ago in the Atlantic Ocean.

March 4th, 2009 BERLIN - The German Navy arrested nine people Tuesday following a dramatic action to head off a pirate attack on a German merchant vessel off the coast of Somalia. According to the German defence ministry, a vessel owned by a Hamburg-based shipping company, the MV Courier, was attacked by pirates early Tuesday morning.

February 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Responding to a distress call from an Indian-flagged commercial ship, the US Navy has arrested nine more suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia - the second capture in two days. The Indian-flagged Premdivya sent a distress call at 4 a.m.

February 3rd, 2009 SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI - An Indian submarine and two Chinese warships on an anti-piracy mission were recently locked in a tense standoff in the waters off Somalia, Chinese media reports said Wednesday. The Indian Navy said none of its submarines were in the area.

January 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Three Indians are being held hostage by Somali pirates on board a Kenyan fishing vessel in the Gulf of Aden since Jan 9, the Indian Navy said Friday while assuring that action would be taken to free them. The ship, M V Alpha Manyara, was taken over by the pirates near the Kenyan coast.

January 9th, 2009 NAIROBI - At least five Somali pirates drowned with their share of ransom after their boat capsized off the coast of the Horn of Africa nation, reports Saturday said. The pirates had set free Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, which was hijacked two months ago, in exchange for a reported $3 million ransom.