MOGADISHU (Reuters) – The crew of a US ship attacked off Somalia called on President Barack Obama to lead the battle to stamp out piracy yesterday, after US forces freed the ship’s captain to end a five-day hostage drama.
Navy snipers shot dead three Somali pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips in a drifting lifeboat circled by US warships. Other pirates vowed revenge on Americans.
More than 250 hostages of many nationalities are still being held along the Somali coast by pirates who have seized dozens of vessels, from tankers to yachts, in recent months.
Helicopters once again flew over pirate bases near Eyl on the Somali coast overnight after Phillips’ rescue.
“They killed our friends on the lifeboat and we thought helicopters would bomb us in Eyl last night,” a pirate in Eyl, who called himself Farah, told Reuters.
“We were mourning for dead friends and then roaring planes came — grief upon grief. America has become our new enemy.”
The US Navy said the decision to shoot Phillips’ kidnappers was a split-second one, taken because he appeared to be in “imminent danger.”
“They were pointing the AK-47s at the captain,” Vice Admiral William Gortney, head of the US Naval Central Command, said.
“The on-scene commander took it as the captain was in imminent danger and then made that decision and he had the authorities to make that decision and he had seconds to make that decision.” A fourth pirate was captured alive.
President Obama granted the Pentagon’s request for standing authority to use appropriate force, Gortney said.
Phillips, captain of the US-flagged Maersk Alabama container ship, contacted his family after the rescue, received a medical check, and rested aboard the USS Boxer.
His crew set off flares, hoisted an American flag and jumped for joy at the news of their captain’s rescue.
They called on Obama to take the lead in combating piracy.
“America has to be in the forefront to put an end to this crisis … This crew was lucky to be out of it with everyone alive. We are not going to be that lucky again,” first nautical officer Shane Murphy told reporters in Kenya’s Mombasa port.
Phillips was the first American taken by pirates who have plundered ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean for years.
An Italian tugboat hijacked in the Gulf of Aden arrived at Las Qoray on the north Somali coast on Sunday, residents said.
“Well-armed pirates on the tugboat ordered us to keep away from areas near them. Two of the pirates came down to town to persuade residents to allow them to stay but I don’t know the outcome,” fisherman Jama Feysal told Reuters by phone.
The tug, carrying 10 Italians, 5 Romanians and a Croatian, was seized on Saturday. Mohamed Salah Dubeys, a Somaliland military commander, said the pirates were also holding two Egyptian ships with 24 other hostages in the area.
Obama, spared another thorny foreign policy crisis to add to his problems with the US economic meltdown and the war in Afghanistan, vowed to curb piracy.
“To achieve that goal, we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes,” he said in a statement.
US congressman Donald Payne flew to Mogadishu yesterday, making what is believed to be the first visit to the Somali capital by a senior American politician since 1994. Mortars were fired at him as he left by plane.
Somali pirates vowed to avenge the US shootings of their comrades, as well as a French military assault to rescue a yacht on Friday in which two pirates were killed and three captured.
“The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now,” Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone.
The Maersk Alabama, carrying food aid for Somalis, was attacked far out in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday, but its 20 American crew regained control. Phillips volunteered to go with the pirates in a lifeboat in exchange for the crew’s safety.
“The actions of Captain Phillips and the civilian mariners of Maersk-Alabama were heroic,” Gortney said. “Captain Phillips selflessly put his life in the hands of these armed criminals in order to protect his crew.”
Friends of the pirates told Reuters they wanted $2 million.
Local elder Ismail Haji Ahmed told Reuters by phone from the coastal village of Eyl, a notorious pirate base: “Roaring helicopters terrified us so much that no one slept last night.
“If we could flee from Eyl, the planes could bomb the pirates. We were confined to our houses and could not even go to latrines.”
So far, pirates have generally treated hostages well, sometimes roasting goat meat for them and even letting them phone loved ones. The worst violence has been the occasional beating. No hostages are known to have been killed by pirates
