When Somali pirates hijacked the MV Faina, they probably didn't know about its deadly cargo of 33 T-72 tanks, rocket launchers, rifles and heavy weapons allegedly destined for Kenya's military.

The military cargo, worth an estimated $30 million, has since transformed the routine hijacking into the most high-profile incident yet off the Somali coast and, analysts say, probably sounded the death knell for the piracy industry there.

For a start, it is unlikely that a growing international task force, which now includes elements from the navies of Russia and the United States, will allow the pirates on the MV Faina to offload the weapons, which could be used by insurgents to further destabilise the weak Somali government.

Doubts also exist over whether the $20 million ransom the pirates are asking for will be paid, raising the possibility of a military resolution.

More fundamentally, the hijacking of the mv Faina, a 160 metre roll-on, roll-off cargo carrier, has served to concentrate minds on the growing threats posed to international trade and security by the Somali pirates, who this year have had the audacity to board ships over 250 nautical miles offshore.

A total of some 62 ships have been attacked this year, with 26 being hijacked. About 12 ships remain in the hands of the pirates, along with more than 200 crew members.

These statistics, according to the United Nations, emphasise the gravity of the problem and call for a co-ordinated international response.

"There is a striking similarity between the actions of these unscrupulous pirates and the activity in 'blood diamonds' in Liberia and Sierra Leone during the civil wars in these countries," the United Nations special representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah said in Nairobi last week, adding that with the hijacking of the MV Faina, "a new line has been crossed".

Elsewhere, InterManager, an international association that represents a worldwide fleet of more than 2,500 oceangoing ships and some 100,000 crew, condemned "the lack of a co-ordinated international effort" to tackle the escalating piracy problem in the Gulf of Aden.

"It is unacceptable that our crews are obliged to face this kind of danger while their ships are carrying essential goods, including food and commodities, to all the world's people," InterManager general secretary Guy Morel said in a statement. "It is unclear why more swift action has not already been taken when the UN has obtained from the Somali government the right to pursue pirates in its territorial waters."

Similar exasperation has been expressed by the International Chamber of Shipping, which accused the international community of standing "idly by" as Somali pirates played havoc with shipping.

"The pirates are now attacking ships on a daily basis with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades," said the statement by the chamber. "If civil aircraft were being hijacked on a daily basis, the response of governments would be very different."

That call to arms could see more active action off the Somalia coast to disable the mother ships that pirates operate from, as well as block the channels through which they receive ransoms.

Ironically, suspicion is growing that some of that money is invested or at the very least routed through Kenya.

Last Thursday, Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua cited this possibility as the reason for the arrest of Andrew Mwangura of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Programme, "who seems to have well-established communications channels with the pirates."

Critics of the arrest, however, say Mr Mwangura was arrested because he revealed that the hijacked arms were bound for Southern Sudan, which is under a UN arms embargo, and not Kenya.

Analysts say that it is the proposed military policing by an international naval task force that will end the piracy menace.

In June, UN Security Council resolution gave permission for such action to stop "piracy and armed robbery at sea," but this has at most been weak and unco-ordinated.

That could dramatically change with the formation of an international task force to combat Somali piracy. By the end of last week, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden had offered ships for the force, which was also expected to be joined by the US and Britain and possibly Russia. On its part, the Somali government says it will welcome any action by the task force against the pirates.

"The government has lost patience and now wants to fight pirates with the help of the international community," Somali president, Abdullahi Yusuf said in a radio address.