AFR: US skipper rescued as troops kill pirates
By Mustafa Haji Abdinur13 Apr 2009 5:31 AM
MOGADISHU, April 12 AFP - US forces rescued an American container ship captain held by Somali pirates in an operation in which three pirates were killed, according to the US Navy.
The skipper, Richard Phillips, was freed after five days in a lifeboat at about 7:19pm on Sunday (0219 AEST Monday), the US Navy's Fifth Fleet said in a statement, adding that US military forces had one pirate in custody.
Phillips was first taken aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge before being flown to the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, "where he contacted his family, received a routine medical evaluation, and is resting comfortably", it said.
US President Barack Obama said late on Sunday said he's "very pleased" at the outcome of the rescue operation, the White House said.
The operation came only two days after French commandos stormed a yacht on which other Somali pirates were holding two French couples and a child. The father of the child was killed in the operation.
Phillips had been held aboard a lifeboat since Wednesday when the crew of the Maersk Alabama regained control of their vessel from the pirates.
The pirates bundled Phillips into a lifeboat as they escaped and demanded a ransom.
Tensions rose and the pirates fired on a small US navy vessel that tried to approach the lifeboat on Saturday, the New York Times said.
Negotiations with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation broke down on Saturday after US authorities insisted the pirates be arrested after handing him over, a Somali elder Mohamoud Jama told AFP by telephone from Garacad, Somalia.
Abdi Garad, head of the Somali group that held Phillips, told AFP in a telephone interview from their base in Eyl that "the Americans have played the same trick that the French troops did because we lost contact with our friends this afternoon".
Garad said the pirates dropped their ransom demand and were asking for Phillips to be moved onto a Greek ship that had been hijacked by the group.
The Maersk Alabama has gone on to the Kenyan port of Mombasa, where about 10 members of the American crew were seen celebrating on the deck, shouting and opening bottles of champagne.
Its crew were kept on board in Mombasa while FBI agents debriefed them, but one of them described their captain as a hero, in comments to reporters on the dockside.
The four surviving French hostages freed by French special forces on Friday arrived back in Paris on Sunday.
The yacht's owner, Florent Lemacon, was killed in the raid along with two pirates. Three other Somalis were taken prisoner.
His widow, Chloe Lemacon, their three-year-old son Colin and two friends were flown to a military airport near Paris.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin has said he could not rule out that Lemacon was killed by French fire. He also appealed to French citizens to stay away from Somalia.
Francis Lemacon, the skipper's father, issued a statement paying tribute to his son and thanking the French state and the soldiers "who risked their lives" to rescue the hostages.
"We have lost more than a son. We are crushed by grief," he wrote in a statement.
As two hostage dramas drew to a close, another group of pirates was manoeuvring an Italian vessel and its 16-strong crew toward the Somali coastline after hijacking it on Saturday, pirate sources said.
The Buccaneer's crew comprises 10 Italians, five Romanians and a Croat, spokesman Claudio Bartolotti told AFP from the headquarters of Micoperi Marine Contractors, in Ravenna, northern Italy.
A pirate told AFP on condition of anonymity that the Italian boat was heading toward Las Qorey on the Somali coast of the Gulf of Aden.
"There are more than 10 pirates onboard the tugboat," he said from the pirate lair of Eyl. "There are also three speedboats accompanying it to the area."
The seizure on Saturday of the Italian ship and its crew was the latest in an sudden flurry of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
