Straits of Singapore Pirates: Tug Attacks

Reported here:

Masked parang-wielding pirates robbed a Singapore-registered tug boat towing a granite-ladened barge in the Straits of Singapore Sunday morning.

'Weihai 5' was towing 'Jovan 1', the barge loaded with granite from Lumut, Perak enroute here, when five pirates boarded it northeast of Helen Mar Reef in the east bound lane of the Singapore Straits from their speed boat at 2.25am.

Four of them wearing masks and armed with parangs, snatched mobile phones, money and other valuables from the six Indonesian crew on board the tug boat, according to the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia Information Sharing Centre (ReCAAP ISC) here today.

And another attack report from ReCAAP:

On 12 July 2009 at about 0200 hrs (local time), a Singapore-registered tug boat, Kenryo towing barge Al Jabber 35 carrying a load of oil rig equipment was at position 01° 09.90' N, 103° 46.0' E (east of Raffles Lighthouse, Singapore Strait) when five robbers boarded the tug boat from a speed boat. The incident occurred when the tug boat was underway to Singapore from Batu Ampar, Indonesia. Four of the robbers worn masks and armed with parangs. The robbers took away mobile phones, money and other valuables from the crew of Kenryo. They also damaged the communication equipment onboard Kenryo before fleeing in the speed boat. The 12 crew who are Indonesians were not harmed.