Armed assailants wielding machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades stormed a commercial vessel off the coast of Somalia on Thursday, British authorities confirmed. 

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a British military body that monitors shipping activity, issued an urgent alert warning ships transiting through the region to exercise extreme caution.

According to the private maritime security firm Ambrey, the vessel under attack was a Malta-flagged tanker. The company said initial assessments indicated that Somali pirates were behind the assault — the latest in a string of similar incidents reported in recent weeks.

Piracy off the Horn of Africa once posed a major global threat, peaking in 2011 when 237 attacks were recorded. The economic toll of Somali piracy that year reached an estimated $7 billion worldwide, including $160 million in ransom payments, according to data from Oceans Beyond Piracy.

Following years of coordinated international naval patrols and the re-establishment of a functioning Somali government, piracy incidents had sharply declined. However, maritime experts warn that the threat has resurfaced, partly fuelled by instability in nearby waters.

Analysts link the recent uptick in pirate activity to disruptions caused by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, whose ongoing attacks on vessels in the Red Sea have diverted naval attention and trade routes amid the Israel–Hamas conflict.

The International Maritime Bureau reported seven piracy incidents off Somalia in 2024. So far this year, multiple fishing vessels have been hijacked in the region, marking a troubling resurgence of piracy in one of the world’s most strategically vital sea lanes.

--Agencies