BRUSSELS (Belgium) - NATO has no immediate plans to intercept the Saudi supertanker hijacked by Somali pirates over the weekend, alliance spokesman James Appathurai said on Tuesday.

Nato officials have said the weekend hijacking took place in a part of the Indian Ocean far removed from the area where the three of their warships have been operating since last month.

Two vessels - the Greek frigate HS Themistokles and the Italian destroyer ITS Durand - are escorting cargo ships chartered by the World Food Program to carry food aid from Mombasa to Mogadishu.

The British frigate HMS Cumberland is conducting deterrence patrols in the Gulf of Aden, where it was engaged in a firefight last week with pirates attempting to hijack a Danish ship.

The vessels have been dispatched to the region under a UN mandate to escort vessels chartered by the World Food Programme to Somali ports, and to conduct patrols designed to deter pirates from attacking merchant ships transiting through the Gulf of Aden.

The US Navy said the oil tanker MV Sirius Star was seized on Saturday about 833 kilometres south-east of Mombasa, Kenya, and that the bandits were taking the ship to a Somali port known as a hub of pirate activity.

'Nato's mandate is not related to interception of hijacked ships outside the patrol area', Mr Appathurai said. 'I'm not aware that there's any intention by Nato to try and intercept this ship'. -- AP