April 05, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 27, 1429

PARIS: Pirates seized control of a French cruise ship carrying 30 crew members on Friday in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia’s coast, the French Foreign Ministry and the ship’s owner said.

Attackers stormed the “Le Ponant” as it returned without passengers from the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, toward the Mediterranean Sea, French maritime transport company CMA-CGM officials said. The corporate officials said they were in close contact with the French Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement that a cruise ship and its crew were attacked by pirates.

The ship was in the high seas in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia’s coast in the Indian Ocean, the ministry said. At least some of the crew members are French, it said.

Pirates seized more than two dozen ships off Somalia’s coast last year. The US Navy has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region. Last year, the guided missile destroyer USS Porter opened fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to a Japanese tanker.

Wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have its own navy, and a transitional government formed in 2004 with UN help has struggled to assert control.—AP