Pirates Seize Massive Oil Tanker

The U.S. Navy said Monday that pirates had seized control of a Saudi-owned oil tanker off the coast of Kenya.

A spokesman for the Navy's 5th Fleet confirmed to CBS News that the crude oil tanker Sirius Star, owned by Saudi-based Aramco corporation and operated by Vella International, was seized 450 miles off the coast of Kenya on Nov. 15.

According to Lt. Nathan Christensen, the tanker is three times the size of most U.S. aircraft carriers, making it the largest vessel to be attacked by pirates off Africa's coast, according to the U.S.

Christensen said the attack was significant as it represented an expansion of the pirates' operational zone, which had been confined to about 200 miles of the coast.

Russian and British forces repelled a pirate attack off Somalia in the first action by a Russian warship sent to bolster international forces fighting a plague of hijackings in coastal waters vital to global commerce, the two nations' militaries said last week.

Attacks have continued virtually unabated off Somalia, which has had no functioning government since 1991. Kenya is immediately to the south of Somalia on the east Africa coast.

The total number of naval attacks off Somalia now stands at 84 for this year, with 33 ships hijacked and 12 still in pirates' hands, most notably a Ukrainian freighter.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution in June allowing ships of foreign nations that cooperate with the Somali government to enter their territorial waters "for the purpose of repressing acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea."

About 20,000 ships sail through the Gulf of Aden each year, compared to 13,000 that pass through the Panama Canal and 50,000 that traverse the Straits of Malacca - formerly the most pirate-infested waterway in the world.