April 26  An Italian cruise ship was attacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean late yesterday, a day after a German cargo ship was seized.

The MS Melody's security personnel fended off the pirates in a shoot-out after they came under fire from automatic weapons, a spokeswoman for the ship's Italian owner MSC Crociere said by telephone today. None of 1,000 passengers and 530 crew aboard were injured in the attack, the spokeswoman said.

The skirmish happened some 500 miles east of Mogadishu and 200 miles north of the Seychelles, a spokesman of the European Union's Atalanta anti-piracy team said today.

The attack followed yesterday's seizure of a 31,000-ton German grain cargo ship by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The 17 member-crew are "believed" to be unhurt after the ship was hijacked in the eastern end of the gulf overnight, the EU Maritime Security Centre said on its Web site today.

Almost all of this year's hijackings around the Horn of Africa have been carried out on ships off Somalia's east coast or outside naval convoys in the Gulf of Aden above it, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Between 22,000 and 24,000 ships sail through the Gulf of Aden each year. Many use Egypt's Suez Canal to the north to travel between Europe and Asia.

The MS Melody is now being escorted by a Spanish warship, the Atalanta spokesman said. Vessels were warned to stay away from the area for fear of further attacks, he added.

Yemeni Freighter

Germany's Spiegel magazine said earlier today that the cruise ship was German-owned. The Atalanta spokesman said only an incident with an Italian cruise liner took place.

Separately, a Yemeni freighter and its 15-strong crew held by Somali pirates since January has been released, Agence France-Presse said, citing Ecoterra International, a Kenya-based non-governmental organization that monitors piracy off Somalia.

The U.S. in January said it would start Task Force 151, a multinational group aiming to counter the growing threat off Somalia's coast.

The International Chamber of Shipping, which represents operators of half the world's merchant fleet, told member this month to observe a 600-mile-wide exclusion zone off Somalia's coast unless they're part of a protected military convoy.