MOGADISHU (Xinhua) – A Somali insurgent group Thursday urged the pirates holding a Ukrainian ship carrying military hardware to destroy the ship and its cargo.

Sheik Muqtar Robow, spokesman for Al-Shabaab Islamist movement said that his group believes the Ukrainian ship hijacked last week off the coast of Somalia last week is carrying the 33 Russian-madeT-72 tanks and other small arms to Ethiopian Woyanne military currently deployed in Somalia.

“We know that the tanks are for the enemy (Ethiopian Woyanne troops) in Somalia, so we call on those holding the Ukrainian ship to bury it and destroy all the military hardware,” Robow told Xinhua by phone.

The Al-Shabaab is one of the hard-line insurgency groups that have been waging deadly attacks on Ethiopian Woyanne troops backing Somali government forces since the allied forces ousted an Islamist administration in southern and central Somalia in December 2006.