New Delhi - The Indian Navy foiled an attack by pirates off the Somali coast and sunk their ship, news reports said Wednesday.

The Indian Navy's INS Tabar stealth frigate, which has been deployed in the Gulf of Aden, was fired at by pirates late Tuesday, the IANS news agency reported.

The INS Tabar returned fire and sank the pirate vessel, a navy official told the IANS.

The NDTV network reported that there were at least three pirate vessels that had attacked the Indian ship.

The strike was the second successful one by the Indian Navy against pirates in Somali waters.

Last week, the INS Tabar staved off an attack by Somali pirates on two merchant vessels - one from India and another from Saudi Arabia.

Nairobi - Somali pirates achieved a new milestone in their seemingly unstoppable rise this weekend when they seized a Saudi Arabian supertanker laden with two million barrels of oil worth almost 100 million dollars.

It seems that every month there is a new first for the pirates, who have dramatically increased the frequency of their attacks this year.

But what is most concerning about the latest attack is that it seems to point to the pirates changing tactics in response to an increased presence of international warships in the region.

Nairobi - The US Navy is monitoring the path of a hijacked Saudi oil tanker as it makes its way to anchorage off the coast of Somalia but does not plan any action to recover the ship, a US navy official said Tuesday.

The tanker Sirius Star, which was sailing under a Liberian flag, was seized by Somali pirates on Saturday 450 nautical miles south-east of the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa.

"If it follows the pattern seen in previous attacks, we expect it to be taken to anchorage somewhere off the coast of Somali," Commander Jane Campbell, a Bahrain-based spokeswoman for the US Navy's 5th fleet, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Manila - The Philippine government on Monday called for stepped-up security in dangerous waters off Somalia, where 90 Filipino seafarers were being held captive by pirates in separate hijacking incidents.

The call came after pirates seized a freighter, with 23 crew members, including 18 Filipinos.

Presidential deputy spokesman Lorelei Fajardo said the government was exhausting all means to free the 90 Filipinos still in captivity off Somalia.

The Philippine government "has been continuously calling for increased security in these dangerous waters, areas which have been declared risk zones," she said.

"The Philippine government will do all it can to secure the release of our seamen," she added.

New Delhi - Relatives of the 18 Indian sailors aboard a ship hijacked by Somali pirates two months ago said Monday they were celebrating the release of the ship and were waiting for it to arrive in India's western city of Mumbai.

The Japanese-owned Stolt Valor was freed by the Somali hijackers on Sunday after the ship's owners paid a ransom of 2.5 million dollars, Indian media reports said.

Besides the Indians, the ship's crew included two men from the Philippines and one from Bangladesh.

The ship was hijacked on September 15 in the busy Gulf of Aden while on its way to Mumbai with 24,000 tons of oil products.

Somalian pirates on Sunday released hijacked ship MT Stolt Valor.

According to preliminary reports all the members are released safely.