MOGADISHU (AFP) - Somali pirates holding a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks and military hardware Thursday maintained their demand for a 20-million-dollar ransom as a blockade around them tightened.
As warships from the United States and other navies kept close watch on the MV Faina off Somalia's Indian Ocean coast, the pirates insisted on being paid before releasing the cargo and the 21-member crew.
"We are negotiating with the company that owns the vessel.
The discussions are headed towards a positive end, but nothing has been finalised," the pirates' spokesman Sugule Ali told AFP.
He added, "We are demanding 20 million dollars and that figure still stands," The figure would almost double the estimated sum already paid this year to free hijacked ships.
Meanwhile, Somali Islamist militants urged the pirates to destroy the cargo and the vessel if no ransom is paid, while admitting that they would be interested in acquiring the arms.
"If they do not get the money they are demanding, we call on them to either burn down the ship and its arms or sink it," Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, a spokesman for the hardline Shabab movement, told AFP in an interview.
But Robow said his movement, gradually gaining ground over government troops in southern Somalia, was not linked to the pirates who seized the Belize-flagged freighter last week as it headed for Mombasa in Kenya.
"We have no contacts and links with the pirates and they are in the waters for their own interests."
The freighter contains 33 T-72M1 and T72-M1K battle tanks, six anti-aircraft defence systems, 150 RPG-7 launchers, six missile launchers and 14,000 rounds of 125 mm ammunition.
Earlier in the week, the pirates said the arms were headed for Sudan, a view shared by the United States.
The Ukrainian owners of the freighter and Nairobi said the tanks were destined for Kenya.
Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Programme, who also said the cargo was for Sudan, was being questioned by Kenyan police for making "alarming statements."
The US Navy has vowed to prevent the pirates from offloading the arms, but Robow said his movement would not mind getting hold of them in a bid to boost its campaign against troops from Somalia, Ethiopia and the African Union in Mogadishu.
The US Defence Department has said it laid emphasis on ensuring a "peaceful resolution."
The Ukrainian freighter has 21 Ukrainians, Russians and Latvians in the crew. The ship's captain died of an illness on board, according to Russian media.
The number of pirates currently operating off the coast of Somalia is believed to be upward of 1,000. Most of them are former coastguards.
Piracy along Somalia's long, unpatrolled coastline on the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden started years ago as an effort to deter foreign fishing boats depleting the country's maritime resources.
Over the past few years, it has evolved into a well-organised industry, with pirates armed to the teeth targeting anything from tourist yachts to huge merchant vessels and demanding huge ransoms.
London-based think tank Chatham House said in a new report on piracy off Somalia that "total ransom payments for 2008 probably lie in the range of 18-30 million dollars."
It warned that piracy, if unchecked and allowed to be co-opted by extremists, would disrupt world trade.
"If the cost of extra insurance becomes prohibitive, or the danger simply too great, shipping companies may avoid the Gulf of Aden and take the long route to Europe and North America around the Cape of Good Hope," the report said.
Somalia's northeastern tip juts out into the Indian Ocean and commands access to the Gulf of Aden, a key international maritime route leading to the Suez Canal and through which an estimated 30 percent of the world's oil transits.
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