NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) - SOMALI pirates in the Gulf of Aden have hijacked a Libyan-owned cargo ship thought to be carrying 17 seafarers from Romania and Libya, a European Union anti-piracy force and a maritime group said on Thursday.

The number of piracy attacks worldwide leapt almost 40 per cent last year, with gunmen from the failed Horn of Africa state accounting for more than half the 406 reported incidents, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Kenya-based Ecoterra, which monitors shipping off Somalia, said the 4,800-tonne MV Rim was seized on Tuesday in the strategic channel south of Yemen. It said it was flying a North Korean flag, but was owned by White Sea Shipping of Tripoli.

The group said local reports suggested the hijackers were from Somalia's semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland. Typically, the heavily armed Somali pirates hold captured ships and their crews hostage until ransoms are paid.

As their ransoms demands spiral higher, rivalry between pirate gangs has grown. A dispute in January over the biggest ever payoff, for a Greek tanker carrying two million barrels of oil, triggered deadly gunbattles at sea and then back on land.

The International Chamber of Shipping, which represents 75 per cent of the global seaborne industry, said last month that it felt deepening frustration at the international community's 'impotence' in combating increasing piracy in the Indian Ocean.

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