The MV Al Marjan, with 22 mostly Asian crew members on board, was seized on October 19 as it sailed to Mogadishu port from the United Arab Emirates port of Dubai.

"The ship was released a couple of hours ago off the coast of Central Somalia," Commander Lydia Robertson, the spokeswoman for Bahrain-based US Naval Forces Central Command, told AFP.

Robertson said USS Whidbey Island, a dock landing ship, had sent help to the released vessel.

"We are ready to offer them (crew) any assistance they need -- food, medicine," she added.

The freighter is owned by Shahmir Maritime of Saint Vincent and Grenadines, but operated by Dubai-based Biyat International.

The US Navy patrolling the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden waters has urged pirates to abandon captured vessels.

Rampant piracy off Somalia stopped briefly during the strict rule of an Islamist movement in the second half of 2006, but resumed after Ethiopian and Somali government troops ousted the Islamists at the end of last year.

Numerous attacks have occurred this year off Somalia's 3,700 kilometres (2,300 miles) of unpatrolled coastline, prompting the International Maritime Bureau to advise sailors to steer clear of the coast.

Somalia lies at the mouth of the Red Sea -- on a major trade route between Asia and Europe via the Suez canal -- and has lacked a functional government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

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