MOGADISHU, Somalia — Pirates who seized a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million in crude oil anchored the ship within sight of impoverished Somali fishing villages today, while the U.S. and other naval forces decided against intervention for now.

With few other options, shipowners in past piracy cases have ended up paying ransoms for their ships, cargos and crew.

NATO said it would not divert any of its three warships from the Gulf of Aden and the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet also said it did not expect to send ships to try to intercept the MV Sirius Star. The tanker was seized over the weekend about 450 nautical miles off the Kenyan coast, the latest in a surge of pirate attacks this year.

Never before have Somali pirates seized such a giant ship so far out to sea — and never a vessel so large. The captors of the Sirius Star anchored the ship, with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crew members, close to a main pirate den on the Somali coast, Harardhere.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called the hijacking “an outrageous act” and said “piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which is against everybody, and everybody must address it together.”

Somalis on shore were stunned by the gigantic vessel — as long as an aircraft carrier at 1,080 feet.

“As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore,” said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman in Harardhere.

“I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship as big as this one,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship, which they can see with their naked eyes.”

He said two small boats floated out to the ship and 18 men — presumably other pirates — climbed aboard with a rope ladder. Spectators watched as a small boat carried food and qat, a narcotic leaf popular in Somalia, to the supertanker.

Speaking during a visit to Athens on today, the Saudi official said Saudi Arabia would join an international initiative against piracy in the Red Sea area, where more than 80 pirate attacks have taken place this year.

He did not elaborate on what steps the kingdom would take to better protect its vital oil tankers. Saudi Arabia’s French-equipped navy has 18,000-20,000 personnel, but has never taken part in any high-seas fighting.

Abdullkadir Musa, the deputy sea port minister in northern Somalia’s breakaway Puntland region, said if the ship tries to anchor anywhere near Eyl — where the U.S. said it was heading — then his forces will try to rescue it.

Forces from Puntland have confronted pirates off the coast, though Somalia’s weak central government, which is fighting Islamic insurgents, has been unable to mount a response to increasing piracy.

Puntland forces, their guns blazing, freed a Panama-flagged cargo ship from pirates on Oct. 14. The gunbattle killed one soldier and injured three others. No hostages or pirates were hurt.

The Dubai-based owner of the Saudi tanker Vela International Marine Ltd. said the oil tanker’s crew “are believed to be safe.” The crew consists of 19 Philippines nationals, two British, two Polish, one Croatian and one Saudi national.