Somali Pirates: Disarming suspected pirates

Reported as British ship 'disarms suspected pirate skiffs':

British frigate HMS Portland intercepted two suspicious skiffs in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday and troops boarded them, preventing a possible pirate attack, the US Navy said.

The boarding party "found articles that indicated the skiff had been involved or was about to conduct an act of piracy, and were clearly not those of an innocent fishing vessel," the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet said.

The skiffs, with 10 people aboard, were carrying extra barrels of fuel, grappling hooks and a cache of weapons that included rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and ammunition, the statement said.

The suspected pirates were disarmed and released because there was insufficient evidence to directly link them to a specific attack, it added.

"Having prevented this group of pirates from reaching their merchant traffic prey Portland destroyed one of the skiffs and confiscated all their weapons," the statement said.

Sounds like the guys in the skiffs were after some really BIG fish...