Somali pirates have hijacked a South Korean oil tanker with 24 crew members on board. The supertanker was carrying as much as 170 million dollars' worth of crude oil.

The 300,000-tonne South-Korean operated, Singapore-owned, Samho Dream was seized on Sunday while it was on its way from Iraq to the US. The crew of five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos were taken hostage.

A South Korean warship, which was in the Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy operations, has been ordered to move to the waters where the hijacking took place to intercept the tanker before it reaches port. The hijacking is thought to have taken place about 1500 kilometres south-east of the Gulf of Aden.

Pirates targeting ships off the coast of Somalia made tens of millions of dollars in ransom payments last year. While attacks in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean have become an increasing risk for cargo vessels, it is rare for pirates to successfully seize the kind of massive supertankers that carry most Gulf crude to refiners.