April 19 (Bloomberg) -- A Belgian ship captured by pirates in the Indian Ocean is being steered toward Somalia, while a separate attack on a Norwegian tanker was foiled, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said.

The Belgium-registered vessel, the Pompei, “is heading toward the Somalia coast with pirates on board,” Lieutenant Commander Alexandre Fernandes, a NATO spokesman, said by telephone today from the Portuguese frigate Corte Real in the Gulf of Aden. “We assess that they are Somali” pirates who seized the ship.

The cargo ship, which is owned by Dredging Environmental & Marine Engineering NV and Jan de Nul Groep NV, was captured yesterday north of the Seychelles Islands with a 10-man crew that includes two Belgians, one Dutch, four Croatians and three Filipinos, Fernandes said. The vessel is “being closely monitored by Operation Atalanta,” the European Union’s anti- piracy operation, Fernandes said.

Atalanta is stepping up air patrols in the Indian Ocean as pirates refocus their activities away from the Gulf of Aden amid heavy surveillance by international forces, the organization said on April 10. The European Commission, the EU executive in Brussels, will host an international aid conference this week to help Somalia combat piracy.

“This sea is like a highway,” said Hubert Fiers, a spokesman for DEME, one of the ship’s owners, adding that the area has become “very unsafe.” Anti-piracy measures “will have to be intensified,” he said.

Civil War

Eighteen years of civil war have reduced Somalia to lawless chaos, allowing bandits to thrive. Doctors Without Borders said today that two aid workers with its Belgian unit have been kidnapped in the east African nation, without providing more details. Agence France-Presse, citing an unidentified humanitarian source, reported that the workers were taken in the south of the country by gunmen today.

At least 80 vessels have been attacked in the waters around the Horn of Africa this year, 19 of them seized with the help of rocket launchers and automatic weapons, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The increase in attacks is linked to the pirates becoming better armed and organized, Rear Admiral Philip Jones, who is in charge of six warships for the EU Naval Force for Counter Piracy, told Britain’s Sunday Telegraph today.

The Canadian frigate Winnipeg thwarted a separate attack in the region against the Norwegian tanker Front Ardenne, owned by Frontline Ltd., the world’s largest operator of supertankers, NATO’s Fernandes said. With help from U.S. warship Halyburton, the Winnipeg captured seven pirate suspects, all believed to be Somali, after about “seven hours of hot pursuit,” he said.

Front Ardenne

Mikhail Stinov, the Front Ardenne’s first mate, spotted the armed pirates in a speed boat yesterday as they approached the 80,000-ton oil tanker, and sent a distress signal to warships in the area, Norwegian newspaper VG cited Stinov as saying. The pirates took off when the Winnipeg approached, he told the newspaper. The ship with a crew of 22 Russians and Filipinos was en route to China from Libya, according to VG.

The 1,800-ton Pompei, whose home port is Bruges, was heading to Durban, South Africa, when it was hijacked 150 nautical miles (278 kilometers) north of the Seychelles Islands and 700 nautical miles east of Somalia, according to Atalanta, which describes the ship as a “stone carrier.” Since then, the empty vessel has been “straight on the way to the Somali coastline,” Atalanta said.

Crisis Center

Jaak Raes, director general of the Belgian Crisis Center, told reporters in Brussels today that the Pompei has traveled about 270 kilometers since being hijacked and, at its speed of seven knots, is expected to reach the Somali coast around noon Brussels time on Wednesday. The situation is “being closely monitored” by the center, he said.

“We tried to establish contact” with the ship, Raes said. “We didn’t realize any contact. We don’t have any contact at all.”

Aerial photos released by the crisis center show the Pompei being trailed by a small boat, which is believed to have been used in the attack, Raes said. He said Belgian authorities have initiated a criminal investigation, without giving any details.

Representatives from the Belgian government and the ship’s owners met this afternoon at the crisis center in Brussels. Dirk De Backer, Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy’s spokesman, referred questions to the crisis center.

‘No Clear Rules’

The legal systems in many ship operators’ nations lack the necessary laws for dealing with pirates. Dutch marines yesterday had to release nine Somalis suspected of piracy who were found aboard a Yemeni fishing vessel in the Gulf of Aden because “there are no clear rules,” Robin Middel, spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Defense, said today in a telephone interview.

The pirate suspects were seized after the Handytankers Magic, a tanker sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands, sent a distress signal. The Dutch frigate De Zeven Provincien, dispatched by NATO to investigate, found the suspected pirates and 16 hostages on a fishing dhow, Middel said.

“The NATO commander then ordered to set the suspects free,” Middel said. The Dutch ship “operated under the NATO rules of engagement and in that context no clear rules exist on the arresting of pirates.”

The seven suspected pirates captured today by the Winnepeg also were released, NATO’s Fernandes said.

Fiers, the spokesman for DEME, said the European Dredging Association will urge the European Commission for more “coordinated action” to combat piracy in the region. “We need joint action now,” he said.

The commission will host a conference on April 23 to discuss ways to help Somalia fight piracy. Representatives from the EU, the United Nations and the African Union will attend, Amadeu Altafaj, a commission spokesman, said by telephone today.

Between 22,000 and 24,000 ships sail through the Gulf of Aden each year, most of them also navigating Egypt’s Suez Canal to the north to travel between Europe and Asia.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jones Hayden in Brussels at jhayden1@bloomberg.net; Maud van Gaal in Amsterdam at mvangaal@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 19, 2009 14:38 EDT