Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Global piracy attacks so far this year exceeded the total for 2008 after a surge in incidents off the coast of Somalia, the International Maritime Bureau said.

The bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre was notified of 306 attacks in January through September, compared with 293 during all of last year, the London-based bureau said today in an e- mailed report.

The number of attacks in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast more than tripled to 47, from 12 in the same period a year earlier. There were 100 incidents in the Gulf of Aden, up from 51, said the bureau, which is part of the International Chamber of Commerce.

The Gulf of Aden is used by shippers of Middle East oil and Asian-made goods delivering cargoes to Europe. About 20 warships from the European Union, the U.S., Turkey, China, Russia and Malaysia are patrolling the area to protect trade ships.

Attacks off Somalia decreased over the summer because of monsoon winds, which created waves too high for the pirates’ skiffs to navigate.

The monsoon eased in mid-September and attacks resumed. A Spanish tuna trawler, a Singaporean container ship, and a Chinese bulk carrier have been seized in the past two weeks. French marines have repulsed attacks on French boats and a tanker.

Indian Ocean

Pirates are holding six ships and 146 sailors for ransom, the French Navy says.

Recent attacks have been mostly in the Indian Ocean, rather than in the Gulf of Aden.

Somali pirate activity for the moment is limited to a 350 kilometer (218 mile) stretch of Indian Ocean coast in the center of the country, including the pirate lairs of Garacad, Hoboyo and Harardheere, says Ecoterra, an environmental group that monitors the region. Somali elders in the north of the country and Islamic militants in the south have suppressed piracy in their areas, Ecoterra says. Somalia has lacked a central government since 1991.

“Since the end of the monsoon, we’ve seen much less activity in the Gulf of Aden than we expected,” Admiral Peter Hudson, commander of the EU’s eight-warship Atalanta fleet, said in an interview in Paris last week. “We don’t know if it’s our presence, or that local communities are fed up with the pirates. The village elders don’t like the drugs and alcohol that the nouveau riche pirates bring.”

Challenge to Warships

While the Indian Ocean is less of a key trade route than the Gulf of Aden, its wide open spaces provide more of a challenge to warships. “We are patrolling an area the size of the continental U.S. and we are doing it with 20 police cars,” Hudson said.

While the pirates may be operating out of a more limited area, they are well organized, using mother ships to attack as far as 600 miles from shore, Hans Tino Hansen, founder of Danish security consultancy Risk Intelligence, said in a telephone interview.

“There are many fewer commercial ships out in the Indian Ocean, but the pirates know that if they come across one there is very little risk that a naval force will be nearby,” said Hansen.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alaric Nightingale in London at +44-20-7073-3488 or anightingal1@bloomberg.net; Gregory Viscusi in Paris at +33-1-5365-5068 or gviscusi@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at +44-20-7673-2631 or scasey4@bloomberg.net; Peter Torday at +44-20-7330-7539 or ptorday@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 21, 2009 05:14 EDT