(08/15/2007)
KUALA LUMPUR - Armed pirates attacked a Malaysian barge in the Malacca Strait and kidnapped two Indonesian crew, in the first high sea abduction in the busy waterway in over two years, a global maritime watchdog said Tuesday.

The incident late Monday marked the third pirate attack in the strait this year, but the first since July 2005 in which ship crew were kidnapped, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.

The barge was carrying steel billets from Malaysia's northern state of Penang to Belawan in Indonesia, Choong said, when it was raided by some 10 gun-toting pirates.

They destroyed all communication equipment on board before fleeing with the ship master and chief engineer, both Indonesian, he said. Another six Indonesian crew members were unharmed, he said, adding that the vessel is now in Belawan for investigation.

"The modus operandi was similar to the heyday when pirates kidnapped the most senior crew and demanded ransom," Choong told The Associated Press.

"There are no demands for ransom yet but we are concerned that this could be the start of a series of kidnap and ransom cases like what we see before July 2005," he said. "We hope the Indonesian authorities will take immediate action to contain this problem."

The strait is notorious for robberies and hijackings, but the number of attacks has fallen since Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, which share the waterway, launched coordinated maritime and air patrols in recent years to curb piracy.

Some 65,000 vessels pass through the Malacca Strait each year, carrying half the world's oil and more than a third of its commerce. (AP/PAB)