BRUSSELS: A Nato warship prevented a swarm of more than a dozen pirate boats from hijacking five merchant shipping vessels in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, the alliance said in a statement.

Alerted by a distress call, the Italian navy destroyer put itself between the ships and a group of pirate “fast boats,” with all vessels using water hoses to repel the pirates. The Italian warship, Luigi Durand de la Penne, also used its helicopter against the attackers.

“This is probably the biggest multi-coordinated attack we’ve seen,” a Nato official said. He said that more than 12 pirate boats were involved, but that up to 20 may have taken part.

He said that the warship decided not to give chase as there were too many merchant vessels to protect.

The vessels under threat were the Hambourg Star, flagged out of Liberia, the Hong Kong registered Overseas Hercules, Iranian flagged Iran Esteghlal, the Sea Queen from Singapore, and the Alexander Sibum, flagged in Antigua and Barbuda.

Nato has four ships — from Britain, Greece, Italy and Turkey — on patrol in the waters off Somalia, with two protecting UN food aid convoys to the strife-torn Horn of Africa country.

The mission, Nato’s first-ever against pirates, is commanded from Naples, southern Italy.

It will end in mid-December when a bigger European Union operation -- dubbed Atalanta -- is to be put in place.—AFP