Shipping Industry Urges Eu Governments to Take Up Arms Against Somali Pirates

European shipowners are urging EU governments to declare war on Somali pirates in the Horn of Africa and seize their vessels by force, the Guardian has learned, amid growing concern that shipping companies will be forced to avoid the area altogether - at huge cost to global trade.

A day after the world's biggest shipping company, AP Moller-Maersk, said it would divert some of its fleet from the Suez Canal and take the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope, the industry urged more muscular activity against the pirates. Last night, the BBC reported that the UN had given the green light to warships to go after pirate vessels.

Alfons Guinier, the secretary-general of the European Community Shipowners Association (ECSA), said other companies were considering following the example of Maersk. But he said the ECSA, which claims to speak for 41% of the global merchant fleet, wanted EU governments to go further after the hijacking a week ago of the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star more than 400 miles off the Somalian coast.

"We know there will be more military forces in the area, but let's hope they will go after the pirates and stop this escalation," he said. "We're asking not just for more escorts but for repressive action." The demand comes after the International Maritime Organization asked the UN security council to sanction the dispatch of as many warships and aircraft as possible to "disrupt" pirate operations, secure shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and escort vessels, including those bringing food relief to war-torn Somalia.

The pirate groups who have operated with near impunity for years may also be about to face a confrontation on land. Yesterday, they were reported to be strengthening their defenses in a town close to where the hijacked supertanker is anchored, amid signs that Somali Islamists were approaching the town.

Residents of Harardheere, a well-known pirate base halfway up Somalia's eastern coast, saw militias arriving in the town yesterday. "Some of them [militiamen] are inside the town and others are taking shelter in a nearby village and can be called if need be," a local resident told Agence France-Presse.

Rebels from the hardline al-Shabaab Islamist movement also entered the town yesterday although their motives were unclear. Some local people said the fighters wanted to secure a cut of the ransom, while a spokesman for al-Shabaab claimed they were hunting the pirates for the "bigger crime" of hijacking a ship belonging to a Muslim country.

Somali pirates are also holding at least 15 ships and more than 250 crew members. Kenya's foreign minister, Moses Wetangula, claimed yesterday that the pirates had netted $150m (£101m) in ransoms this year, though maritime experts say the figure is closer to $30m. Iran's biggest shipping firm confirmed that it had also received a ransom demand for a Hong-Kong-registered ship carrying 36,000 tonnes of wheat that was captured on Tuesday. The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, has called on shipowners to refuse to negotiate.

The ECSA demand will be made on Monday in talks in with the new EU naval coordination cell set up by foreign ministers in mid-September. The cell is creating an enforcement unit, under Operation Atalanta, based in RAF Northwood outside London. It is due to be fully operational in early December and be headed by a British rear admiral.

Guinier said it should coordinate its military efforts with other forces such as those from Nato, Russia, Japan, Canada and India, which is sending four warships to the region. An Indian warship destroyed a pirate "mothership" earlier this week.

The IMO's secretary-general, Efthimios Mitropoulos, meanwhile, told the UN that, with more than 12% of global oil transport passing through the Gulf of Aden, widespread diversions via South Africa would bring "a series of negative repercussions". "Such diversions would almost double the length of a typical voyage from the Gulf to Europe, thereby increasing fuel consumption, emissions and transport costs which would have to be passed on eventually to consumers everywhere," he said in a statement.

Peter Beck-Bang, a Maersk spokesman in Copenhagen, said diversions would add eight days to transits to the US and 14 days to Europe. If the situation remained unchanged, this would cost the firm "two-digit millions of dollars" in 2009.