Pirates have seized a Saudi-owned supertanker fully laden with oil off east Africa, capturing the biggest vessel yet in a shipping zone where Somali pirates strike almost daily, the US navy said.
Saudi-owned television station Al Arabyia said the Sirius Starhad been freed, citing an unnamed official Saudi source, but the US navy and Saudi Aramco, which owns the supertanker, both said they had no knowledge of any release.
The hijacking of the vessel is certain to add to pressure for concerted international action to tackle the threat posed by pirates from anarchic Somalia to one of the world's busiest shipping routes.
"This is unprecedented. It's the largest ship that we've seen pirated," said Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet. "It's three times the size of an aircraft carrier."
The Sirius Starheld a cargo of as much as two million barrels of oil - more than one quarter of daily Saudi Arabia's daily exports. Reports of the hijacking helped trim early losses in global crude oil prices.
The hijacking, 450 nautical miles (830 km) southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, was in an area far beyond the Gulf of Aden, where most of the attacks on shipping have taken place and where some foreign navies have begun patrols.
The pirates have been getting bolder.
The Sirius Starhad been heading for the United States via the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, skirting the continent instead of heading through the Gulf of Aden and then the Suez Canal.
Reuters