A French warship has captured 11 pirates off the coast of Kenya, amid calls for the international community to deal with the problem of piracy.
The pirates were captured by a warship from an EU piracy patrol, hours after a failed attack on a US ship.
News of the incidents came as the UN special envoy for Somalia said the attacks threatened international peace.
He urged financial backers of the "bandits", as he called them, to be identified and held accountable.
The latest attack involved pirates firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at a US-flagged cargo ship, the Liberty Sun, which was carrying food aid for Africa.
'Mother ship'
The French Defence Ministry said the warship Nivose captured the pirates about 550 miles (900km) east of the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
It had detected a "mother ship", or command vessel, on Tuesday, and observed it overnight before launching an assault early on Wednesday, the ministry said.
An attack on a Liberian-registered vessel was also thwarted, the ministry added.
The Nivose is part of the European Union's operation to protect shipping in the Gulf of Aden.
Despite several anti-piracy patrols, there has been an increase in attacks in the past few days, with four ships seized and others attacked.
The United Nations special envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said the attacks were threatening international peace.
In a BBC interview, he also called for help for poor Somalis themselves, many of whom were being exploited by the pirates.
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