Twenty suspected Somali pirates nabbed by the Dutch navy in the lawless waters off the restive Horn of Africa nation and the Seychelles coast were freed Friday, the defence ministry said. "There were still 20 pirates on the Tromp frigate and they have been freed," ministry spokesman Marloes Visser told AFP. The pirates were interrogated, disarmed and then allowed to ...

Armed, private security guards aboard two Spanish fishing boats Friday repelled an attack from pirates in the Indian Ocean, the boats' owner said. The incident occurred southwest of the Seychelles, when the two tuna trawlers, the Taraska and Ortube Barria, were attacked by pirates aboard two boats, a spokesman for the Albacora company, Ricardo Garcia, told Spanish national radio. "Two ...

Armed crews are a good deterrent against Somali pirates, but the problem off the Horn of Africa will only be solved when Somalia itself is at peace, a top US official said Friday. Thomas Countryman, principal deputy assistant at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, said that while Washington does not encourage an escalation of violence in the region, shooting back ...

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Armed rebel groups in Somalia are using the Internet for fundraising and recruitment, and they achieve better results through the Web than they do on the ground, a United Nations report said. The report by the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia also highlighted how the rebels use the Internet to spread information about making bombs and religious ...