Pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise liner with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel as it sailed along a corridor patrolled by international warships, a maritime official said Tuesday.

The liner, carrying 656 international passengers and 399 crew members, was sailing through the Gulf of Aden on Sunday when it encountered six bandits in two speedboats, said Noel Choong who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Malaysia.

The pirates fired at the passenger liner but the larger boat was faster than the pirates’ vessels, Choong said.

"It is very fortunate that the liner managed to escape," he said, urging all ships to remain vigilant in the area.

The International Maritime Bureau, which fights maritime crime, did not know how many cruise liners use these waters.

The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said it was aware of the failed hijacking but had no further details.

Ship owner Oceania Cruises Inc. identified the vessel as the M/S Nautica.

In a statement on its Web site, the company said pirates fired eight rifle shots at the liner, but that the ship’s captain increased speed and managed to outrun the skiffs.

All passengers and crew are safe and there was no damage to the vessel, it said.

The Nautica was on a 32-day cruise from Rome to Singapore, with stops at ports in Italy, Egypt, Oman, Dubai, India, Malaysia and Thailand, the Web site said. Based on that schedule, the liner was headed from Egypt to Oman when it was attacked.

The liner arrived in the southern Oman port city of Salalah on Monday morning, and the passengers toured the city before leaving for the capital, Muscat, Monday evening, an official of the Oman Tourism Ministry said Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The head of a shipping agency branch in Salalah had contact with the liner there.

"They talked about pirates opening fire at their ship off the Somalian shores," Khalil Shaker told The Associated Press by telephone. He said he had no details of the incident.

It is not the first time a cruise liner has been attacked. In 2005, pirates opened fire on the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the Somali coast. The faster cruise ship managed to escape, and used a long-range acoustic device — which blasts a painful wave of sound — to distract the pirates.

The International Maritime Bureau, in London, cited only the 2005 liner attack and a raid on the luxury yacht Le Ponant earlier this year as attacks on passenger vessels off Somalia.

International warships patrol the area and have created a security corridor in the region under a U.S.-led initiative, but the attacks have not abated.

In about 100 attacks on ships off the Somali coast this year, 40 vessels have been hijacked, Choong said. Fourteen remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 250 crew members.

In two if the most daring attacks, pirates seized a Ukrainian freighter loaded with 33 battle tanks in September, and on Nov. 15, a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million worth of crude oil.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Vasyl Kyrylych said Monday that negotiations with Somali pirates holding the cargo ship MV Faina are nearly completed, the Interfax news agency reported.

A spokesman for the Faina’s owner said Sunday that the Somali pirates had agreed on a ransom for the ship and it could be released within days.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, and pirates have taken advantage of the country’s lawlessness to launch attacks on foreign shipping from the Somali coast. Around 100 ships have been attacked so far this year.

Somali prime minister Nur Hassan Hussein said Tuesday that his country has been torn apart by 18 years of civil war and cannot stop piracy alone.

"This needs a tremendous effort," Hussein told The Associated Press. He has appealed for international troops, as his government’s Ethiopian allies have said they would pull out their forces by the end of the year.

Ethiopia, the region’s military powerhouse, has been integral in boosting the government. But Islamic insurgents have now seized control of all of southern Somalia except for the capital and the parliamentary seat of Baidoa.

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By Bill Roggio

By Bill Roggio

The only member of the jihadi assault team captured during the Mumbai attacks has fingered several Pakistani organizations as providing support to the group, according to reports in the Indian press.

Ajmal Amir Kasab (or Azam Amir Kasav) was captured by police after a shootout near the docks in southern Mumbai. He was wounded and feigned being dead, but was picked out by police after he was seen breathing.

The siege in Mumbai lasted 62 hours and claimed more than 195 lives. Terror assault teams held the city hostage as they fanned out through the city and attacked policemen, five-star hotels, a train station, a cinema, a cafe, and a residential complex.

Kasab has provided details on how his team of 16 terror commandos departed Karachi, linked up with a freighter carrying arms, hijacked an Indian fishing boat, and infiltrated into Mumbai via inflatable rafts. [See Indian commandos end 62-hour siege of Mumbai]

Kasab has implicated the Pakistani Navy and the Dawood Ibrahim criminal network based in Karachi for providing assistance and training for the Mumbai assault team, police sources told India Today. The plot to attack Mumbai was hatched more than a year ago, Kasab told police.

According to the police sources, Kasab said 20 Pakistanis began training in terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir more than one year ago. The group trained in the Kashmiri camps "almost five-and-half months, during which the terrorist were taught the use of sophisticated arms and ammunition."

After the training at the Kashmiri camps, the group was "given a months leave and were ordered to gather in Karachi after the break for training in boating, rowing and swimming by the Pakistan Navy."

The terrorists were then given maps and other information on their targets in Mumbai and trained in attacking the targets, India Today reported. Earlier, Kasab said several members of the assault team visited Mumbai to scout the targets and familiarize themselves with the city.

Kasab also claimed members from Dawood Ibrahim’s criminal network provided logistical support for the Mumbai assault team while they were in Karachi.

Ibrahim runs a vast criminal network throughout South Asia. He has been implicated in the 1993 Mumbai bombings and is known to receive backing by Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency. Indian intelligence believes Ibrahim is based out of Karachi.

The US government branded Ibrahim as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2003. Ibrahim "has found common cause with Al Qaeda, sharing his smuggling routes with the terror syndicate and funding attacks by Islamic extremists aimed at destabilizing the Indian government," the US Treasury stated in a press release. Ibrahim "is known to have financed the activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba," the group thought to be behind this week’s terror attacks in Mumbai.

Kasab also claimed local resident in Mumbai provided logistical support for the terror assault team, The Times of India reported. The locals provided "help like, providing shelter, taking them around and showing places, passing information on police stations," the news agency said. The operatives also received fake identification cards.

Some of the terrorists had stayed in Nariman House, the complex that houses Orthodox Jews, Kasab said. The Israelis were targeted "to avenge atrocities on Palestinians," the paper reported.

Indian intelligence has identified additional links to Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. An "intercepted conversation between Muzammil, Muzaffarabad chief of LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) operations, and a certain Yahya in Bangladesh," showed a direct link in the Mumbai attacks, The Times of India reported. "Yahya arranged SIM cards, fake ID-cards primarily from western countries like Mauritius, UK, US, Australia."

Phone numbers on the satellite phone found the hijacked Indian fishing boat show calls were made to Zakir Ur Rehman, a Lashkar-e-Taiba training chief based in Karachi.

Indian intelligence officials also told The Times of India that 25 terrorists were "training in the Pakistan village of Durbari Mitho, and that an ISI agent was also involved in the training." It is unclear if these were members of the Mumbai assault team.

US intelligence strongly suspects the Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the Mumbai attacks, working in conjunction with the Students Islamic Movement of India and the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami, through a front group called the Indian Mujahideen, several senior US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has an extensive network in southern and Southeast Asia. The group has vast resources, an extensive network, and is able to carry out complex attacks throughout its area of operations.

Lashkar-e-Taiba forces fight alongside al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan. It conducts operations in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and central Asia and in Chechnya. Like al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba seeks to establish a Muslim caliphate in southern and central Asia. The group essentially runs a state within a state of Pakistan.