Somali pirates attacked the container ship Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months. Private guards on board the US-flagged ship repelled the attack with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device.

A US surveillance plane was monitoring the ship as it continued to its destination, Mombasa in Kenya, while a pirate said the captain of a chemical tanker, the Theresa, hijacked on Monday with 28 North Korean crew had died of his wounds.

Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama last April and took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy Seal sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates in a night-time attack.

Four pirates in a skiff attacked the ship again today at about 6.30am local time, opening fire with automatic weapons from about 300 yards away, a statement from the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said. A security team repelled the attack by using evasive manoeuvres, small-arms fire and a Long Range Acoustic Device, which can beam earsplitting alarm tones.

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