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Somali pirates have hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen and are moving it back toward Somali waters.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: Somali piracy was a massive problem from roughly 2008 to 2018, with attacks peaking at 212 in 2011 and pirates targeting ships hundreds of miles off the Somali coast. An international naval coalition eventually shut that shit down, with only a handful of incidents per year now. The pirates’ playbook has stayed pretty consistent over the years: armed men (typically equipped with AK-47s and RPGs) hijack a smaller boat to use as a “mothership,” then launch fast boats from it to chase down and board commercial vessels far from shore. Once a ship is taken, the pirates force it to anchor along the Somali coast, hold the crew hostage, and start negotiating with the ship’s owner or insurance company. Ransoms are almost always paid in physical US dollars, often dropped from a plane in floating waterproof containers near the ship or handed off via boat. Demands and payouts have ranged from a couple million on the low end to $9.5 million for the South Korean supertanker Samho Dream in 2010.

What’s going on now: Yemen’s coast guard said in a statement Saturday that armed men boarded the Togo-flagged M/T Eureka around 5:00 AM local time off Shabwa province in southeastern Yemen and turned the ship south into the Gulf of Aden, pointing it at the Somali coastline. The vessel should drop anchor in Somali waters within hours, and three Puntland security officials separately told the BBC that the hijackers launched their assault from a stretch of coastline near Qandala, a small town on the Gulf of Aden.

Somali authorities say the Eureka is being held for ransom off the coast of Puntland, according to Abshir Hashi Ali, director general of the ministry of ports in Galmudug State. Yemen’s coast guard said it’s working with international partners to track the ship and recover it but warned that its capabilities are limited because of Yemen’s economic situation.

This marks the fourth successful pirate hijacking in roughly two weeks, following the seizures of the oil tanker Honour 25, a fishing dhow, and the cement carrier Sward between April 21 and April 26.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations reported a separate incident Friday in the same general area, where seven armed men in a skiff approached a bulk carrier off Al-Mukala on Yemen’s southern coast. The skiff reportedly launched from near Caluula, a fishing town roughly 130 miles east of where the Eureka boarding crew set out. UKMTO has now raised the piracy threat level along the Somali coast to “substantial” and is warning vessels to transit with caution.

These hijackings have raised concerns about possible coordination between Somali pirates and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. As of now, there’s been no comment from the Houthi’s.