Vessel Sunk Off Somalia by Missile

This report is claiming NATO blew up a ship off Somalia last night.

Somali pirates and a foreign warship clashed off the coast of the town of Hobyo in central Somalia, killing at least three of pirates and wounding four others, witnesses said Saturday.

Hassan Ilka-asse, a a fisherman in the coastal town of Hobyo told AHN by phone that the firefight erupted after one of the foreign warships approached the pirates’ boat.

“Heavy gun fire and shoulder launched missiles could be heard throughout the coastal area nearby. I think the ship was among [the] NATO Navy patrolling off Somalia coast” Ilka-asse explained, citing that he saw a NATO flag upon the top of ship.

He also said the ship completely destroyed the boat with a "big missile".

Something is wrong though, because it does not appear the ship was sunk by NATO as the article claims.

The Somalia Report is guessing it was EUNAVFOR. I'm hearing that isn't correct either.

Some folks in the private intelligence community are telling me the ship sunk was the FV PRANTALAY 12, which is really weird because earlier this week was claimed to be close to release. FV PRANTALAY 12 was reportedly en route from Ceel Dhanaane towards the Hobyo area. All 24 hostages were thought to be on the ship. This is also yet to be confirmed, but is one of the stories.

Now there are Somali sources saying India blew up a dhow, and that hostages of a pirate mothership are thought to have died in the attack. The missile is said to have rapidly consumed the ship in fire and only a few people who were on the ship, and were blown off the ship, survived the attack. Again, this is yet to be confirmed.

All we know for certain is that a ship was sunk killing 3-5 Somali's, and 4-6 Somali's survived the attack. Most people are describing the action as a missile attack.

I guess we will have to wait and see.

Update: Hard to figure how people are claiming to get information from pirates in a hospital in Somalia when all the injured are being treated on the ship, but I think this is the incident in question? Either way, the pirates learned an important (and what should be an obvious) lesson - do not attack Danish warships with machine guns.