Pirates in the Gulf of Aden set free the German-owned Marida Marguerite and its crew, held for almost nine months, the European Union's naval force operating in the Indian Ocean, Navfor, said.

The crew of the 13,168-ton, Marshall Islands-flagged vessel also included two Bangladeshis and one Ukrainian. Pirates, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, boarded the ship, bound for Holland, May 8 around 120 nautical miles south of the port of Salalah, close to the Gulf of Aden and on the southern coast of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula.

There are reports that the ship's owners paid ransom of $5.5 million directly to the pirates by way of an air drop onto the deck of the ship, Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said.

The day before the release of the Marida, pirates seized another German ship, the 5,200-ton general cargo vessel Ems River, flagged in Antigua and Barbuda, along with its crew of seven Filipinos and one Romanian. The ship carrying petroleum coke was boarded around 175 nautical miles northeast of Salalah.

The Ems River was on its way to San Nicolas, Greece, from Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates when the attack happened.

"The pirated vessel Motivator was in the vicinity of Ems River throughout the attack, which further enforces the current pirate modus operandi of the use of motherships," Navfor said. "There are now 25 vessels and 587 hostages held by pirates off the coast of Somalia."

London's International Maritime Bureau said the number of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden dropped in the first half of 2010 by about 20 percent from the same time in 2009. The decrease is because of better escort and surveillance operations by Navfor's Operation Atalanta focusing on the waters in and around the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia and notorious for harboring pirates.

The Gulf of Aden is a favorite hunting ground for pirates because Salalah is a major trans-shipment port for goods moving between Europe and Asia. But the increasing number of pirate attacks forced the European Union set up the anti-piracy Operation Atalanta in December 2008.

Up to 12 ships and a number of maritime patrol aircraft from EU member states are operating at any given time. This month the EU extended the mandate of Operation Atalanta to 2012.

Vessels contributing to Operation Atalanta come from Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Ships and personnel from other countries including Norway, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and Finland contribute to operations from time to time.

Earlier this month, at a ceremony in Djibouti on board the French warship De Grasse, French Rear Adm. Philippe Coindreau handed over command of Operation Atalanta to Rear Adm. Juan Rodriguez of Spain.

With the appointment of Rodriguez, the multinational force headquarters is on board the Spanish warship Patino for the next four months.

"In 2010, 72 percent of pirate attacks have failed, 81 percent since August," Coindreau said.

"Those results are due to the combination of EU Navfor's action, the application of new concepts of operations, the use by the maritime community of systematic security measures on merchant vessels and high-quality cooperation with other naval forces and independent navies."

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