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3 of the 4 pirates are off the vessel.
i'm guessing they didn't know it was filled with food only. 3 left pissed and one refuses to leave......because it was his bonehead plan to begin with.
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon says it appears the American crew of a hijacked ship has regained control of the vessel. A U.S. official says the hijacked ship's crew is free and one pirate is in custody.
Pentagon sources spoke on condiiton of anonymity because information was still preliminary. But sources say the hijacked crew apparently contacted the private shipping company they work for.
The shipping company, Maersk, has scheduled a noon press conference in Norfolk, Va.
Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard, hundreds of miles from the nearest American military vessel in some of the most dangerous waters in the world.
The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. It was the sixth ship seized within a week, a rise that analysts attribute to a new strategy by Somali pirates who are operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.
The company confirmed that the U.S.-flagged vessel has 20 U.S. nationals onboard.
Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said that it was the first pirate attack "involving U.S. nationals and a U.S.-flagged vessel in recent memory." She did not give an exact timeframe.
When asked how the U.S. Navy plans to deal with the hijacking, Campbell said: "It's fair to say we are closely monitoring the situation, but we will not discuss nor speculate on current and future military operations."
It was not clear whether the pirates knew they were hijacking a ship with American crew.
"It's a very significant foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration," said Graeme Gibbon Brooks, managing director of the British company Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service Ltd. "Their citizens are in the hands of criminals and people are waiting to see what happens."
Brooks and other analysts interviewed by the AP declined to speculate on whether American military forces might attempt a rescue operation. A senior Navy official in Washington said the Obama administration was talking to the shipping company to learn "the who, what, why, where and when" of the hijacking.
The U.S. Navy confirmed that the ship was hijacked early Wednesday about 280 miles (450 kilometers) southeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia.
U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen said the closest U.S. ship at the time of the hijacking was 345 miles (555 kilometers)away.
"The area, the ship was taken in, is not where the focus of our ships has been," Christensen told The Associated Press by phone from the 5th Fleet's Mideast headquarters in Bahrain. "The area we're patrolling is more than a million miles in size. Our ships cannot be everywhere at every time."
Somali pirates are trained fighters who frequently dress in military fatigues and use speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades. Far out to sea, their speedboats operate from larger mother ships.
Most hijackings end with million-dollar payouts. Piracy is considered the biggest moneymaker in Somalia, a country that has had no stable government for decades. Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think-tank Chatham House, said pirates took up to $80 million in ransoms last year.
A NATO official said from Brussels that the alliance's five warships were patrolling the Gulf of Aden at the time of attack.
"That's where most of the shipping goes through and we can provide most of the protection in that vital trade route," said the official who asked not to be identified under standing rules.
The official said the taking of the crude-filled Saudi supertanker Sirius Star also happened in open water far off the Somali coastline. The Sirius Star was released in January,
NATO has five warships that patrol the region alongside three frigates from the European Union. The U.S. Navy normally keeps between five to 10 ships on station off the Somali coast. The navies of India, China, Japan, Russia and other nations also cooperate in the international patrols.
NATO sees piracy as a long-term problem and is planning to deploy a permanent flotilla to the region this summer.
On March 29, a NATO supply ship itself came under attack by Somali pirates who appear to have mistaken it for a merchant ship. The crew quickly overcame the attackers, boarded their boat and captured seven.
This is the second time that Somali pirates have seized a ship belonging to the privately held shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. In February 2008, the towing vessel Svitzer Korsakov from the A.P. Moller-Maersk company Svitzer was briefly seized by pirates.
Before this latest hijacking, Somali pirates were holding 14 vessels and about 200 crew members, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
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I would not want to really hazard a concrete guess as to whether the crew itself, or a US Navy special forces team retook the ship.
Given the how quickly the ship was freed from the pirates, as the ship was only hijacked yesterday, I would say it is slightly more probable that the crew itself did it, as a special forces operation would, to my understanding, take a bit more preparation/time. It would not surprise me at all to learn that the SEALs already had a team in place in region for this very purpose though.
3 of the 4 pirates are off the vessel.
i'm guessing they didn't know it was filled with food only. 3 left pissed and one refuses to leave......because it was his bonehead plan to begin with.
I heard another report that they have one captive and the rest of the pirates are "in the water"
They don't give a what the cargo is. They do it for the ransom of the ship and crew.
the US does not pay ransom......except all the time.
i should have used the blue text.
The "flag" country doesn't pay the ransom...the ship owners or their insurance company does...they threaten to scuttle the ship if they don't pay the ransom.
i forgot the blue text, again.
The US crew of a ship hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia has retaken control of the vessel, according to Pentagon sources.
Unnamed US defence officials said one pirate had been captured by the crew of the Maersk Alabama, seized earlier in the Indian Ocean.
But the vessel's Danish owners, Maersk, said they could not confirm that the crew had fought off the pirates.
It was the sixth ship seized off Somalia in recent days.
The Associated Press quoted a defence official as saying: "The crew is back in control of the ship.
"It's reported that one pirate is on board under crew control - the other three were trying to flee."
Reports suggest the other three pirates jumped overboard.
Maersk's chief executive, John Reinhart, said he could not confirm that the ship had been retaken, but told AFP news agency he believed the crew was safe.
The ship was attacked by several small boats in the early hours of Wednesday in an incident apparently lasting for about five hours.
Maritime officials said the vessel took all possible evasive action before it reported that the pirates had boarded.
More than 130 pirates attacks, including close to 50 successful hijackings, were reported in 2008, threatening one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
I wonder if the cook had anything to do with it?
Update: Did Crew Retake U.S. Ship From Pirates
WASHINGTON (AP) - A crew member on the vessel hijacked by pirates is telling The Associated Press that the ship's captain is still being held hostage. The American says negotiations are under way for his release.
The AP called the ship's satellite phone. The man who answered it said the 20-member crew had been taken hostage but managed to seize one pirate and then successfully negotiate their own release.
He says the crew has retaken control of the ship and the pirates are now in a lifeboat. But the man also says that they are holding the ship's captain hostage in the vessel.
The man did not identify himself in the brief phone conversation.
Government officials said details were murky and declined to confirm the report.
Im just a cook
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