SEOUL: South Korean and US helicopters have scared off pirates trying to attack an Egyptian ship off Somalia, military officials in Seoul said on Thursday.
The Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, meanwhile, said the attack was thwarted after an exchange of gunfire with the suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen and that 17 people were later detained.
It was the fourth time the South Korean naval unit has driven away pirates since deploying last month.
A pirate boat was less than two kilometers from the 74,000-ton Amira on Wednesday when a South Korean helicopter with a team of snipers aboard swooped in, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said.
The team drove away the pirates in a joint operation with a US navy helicopter which arrived later, it said.
Three ships from the Turkish-led Combined Task Force (CTF) responded on to a distress call from Amira, which reported being attacked 75 nautical miles south of the Yemeni port of Al-Mukalla, the Fifth Fleet said.
Several assault rifle rounds and one rocket-propelled grenade round targeted the Amira, causing it slight damage, before the pirates were forced to abandon their efforts to board, it added.
As part of the operation, the forces also seized 17 suspected pirates after finding eight assault rifles, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and one rocket-propelled grenade on board a dhow close to Amira, it said.
South Korea dispatched a destroyer named Munmu the Great after a former king, carrying a crew of 300 and a helicopter, to help fight piracy off Somalia, where several of its ships had been seized.
Up to 20 foreign warships now patrol the waters to safeguard major shipping lanes. The South Korean unit has in the past come to the aid of North Korean, Danish and Panamanian vessels.
Pirates attacked more than 100 ships in 2008 off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden, raking in an estimated $120 million in ransom money. -AFP
