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Four Americans, including a Seattle couple, aboard a private yacht hijacked by Somali pirates are dead this morning, and readers reacting to the CBS story on-line are wondering why any of the pirates were taken alive. Likewise, after the Seattle Times caught up with the story at about 7:25 a.m., it didn’t take long for readers to suggest that the pirates be taught a lesson. The incident is hardly a first in that part of the world. Somali pirates have been emboldened by the willingness of some victims to pay outrageous ransoms. Reports indicate that negotiations were underway between the...

While preparing to write my fictional account of the voyage of the Neko II around Africa, which Mr. Farago has been good enough to publish in serial on this site, I spent countless hours researching and reading the accounts of people fortunate enough to sail the globe in private yachts. One of the blogs I stumbled across and drew inspiration from was that of Scott and Jean Adam and their Davidson 58 pilot house sloop, s/v Quest. One of my story’s plot points involved a brush with Somali pirates. No metaphor about art, life, imitation, or the strangeness of fiction...

NAIROBI, Kenya – Pirates in Somalia said Wednesday they are ferrying ammunition and men to the 30 hijacked vessels still under their control, and they threatened to kill more captives following the violent end to a hostage standoff that left four Americans dead. The U.S. military said that 15 pirates detained after the Americans were slain Tuesday could face trial in the United States.

Somali pirates murder 4 Americans in cold blood but Navy captured 13 pirates alive by Bill Levinson As reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Somali pirates killed four American captives while the United States was negotiating peacefully for their release. US Central Command said four Navy warships were deployed in an effort to secure the Americans' release, and "negotiations were ongoing" when the shooting occurred at 1 a.m. today. Upon hearing gunfire, US forces boarded the Quest and confronted the pirates, capturing 13 and killing two. Attempts to revive the four Americans were unsuccessful and all four died from the...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2011 – Somali pirates killed all four Americans they had held hostage aboard a sailing vessel in the Indian Ocean this morning, U.S. Central Command officials announced. U.S. officials were negotiating with the pirates for the safe return of the captured Americans when the murders took place, officials said. Centcom officials said that in the midst of negotiations, U.S. forces responded to gunfire aboard the S/V Quest. When the forces reached the boat, officials said, they discovered all four hostages had been shot by their captors. Despite immediate steps to provide life-saving care, all four hostages ultimately...

An attorney for a Burnsville man accused of threatening to blow up an Amtrak train in Montana on Thursday pledged a vigorous defense for his client. Hussein Hassan, 24, was arrested Monday night amid blizzard conditions in northwestern Montana, where the westbound Empire Builder was halted. Hassan is accused of being drunk and unruly on the train. Hassan later suggested in an empty threat to a sheriff's deputy that he left a bomb on the train, according to the charges. That prompted the evacuation of 140 or so passengers in blizzard-like conditions and delayed its trek to Washington and Oregon...

A Somali pirate who hijacked an American cargo ship received nearly 34 years behind bars Wednesday by a federal judge moved to tears by the tales of his traumatized hostages. Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, 19, calmly apologized as he sought a lesser sentence for hijacking the Maersk Alabama and assaulting its captain and crew before before a dramatic Navy rescue.

MINNEAPOLIS — The girl was 12 when the gangsters told her the rule: They would sell her for sex to men outside the gang, but members of the Somali Outlaws or the Somali Mafia would use her for free. For more than two years she was taken on "missions" to abandoned garages, men's bathrooms, apartments and hotels, enduring hours with multiple men so gang members could get money, pot or booze. Though her mother confronted two of the men twice early on and warned them the girl wasn't even 13, they continued to prostitute her. Eventually some of the gang...

If he had been from almost any other country, the former convict from the Twin Cities called a "person of interest" in the fatal shooting of four people in Minot, N.D., probably would have been deported before the killings occurred. But the 26-year-old man is a native of Somalia. Because Somalia has no government, U.S. officials cannot deport people there. But officials also could not hold him after his release from federal custody in May 2010, following an assault conviction. Generally, officials are prohibited from detaining criminal aliens longer than six months after their release from custody. So the man,...

Two out of the 10 Somali pirates on trial in Hamburg for hijacking a German container ship testified for the first time this week. Their stories provided a glimpse of the hardships of life in their lawless homeland. The accused, Hussein Carab M. politely thanked the court and those present for their attention before describing the hardships that led him to join up with pirates. He claimed that he was six years old when his parents were killed by a grenade in the chaos of Somalia's civil war, and then spent his childhood traumatized, and on his own. Now a...

A feisty prosecutor and passionate cop go after Minnesota-Somali gangs. It took a never-give-up attitude to build the case of a Somali runaway into a massive human trafficking prosecution.

A Dakota County judge, noting that a young man had bragged of his attack, sentenced him to 18 years in prison for the fatal screwdriver stabbing of a taxi driver in Apple Valley during a 2009 robbery. Abdirahman A. Abdikarim, 20, of Apple Valley, pleaded guilty in October to second-degree unintentional murder in the Aug. 1, 2009 killing of Michael A. Palm Jr., 41. Thursday morning, in a Hastings courtroom, he apologized to the victim's family for the killing and said he was not "a cold-blooded killer." Abdikarim could have gotten nearly twice as long a sentence, but he had...

A leader of Somalia's Islamist insurgency threatened to attack America during a speech broadcast Monday. "We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before we come to his country," said Fuad Mohamed "Shongole" Qalaf. Al-Shabab has not yet launched an attack outside Africa but Western intelligence has long been worried because the group targeted young Somali-Americans for recruitment. About 20 have traveled to Somalia for training and at least three were used as suicide bombers inside Somalia. Al-Shabab holds most of southern and central Somalia and has the support of hundreds of foreign fighters, mostly radicalized East Africans....

MOSCOW, December 24 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian sailors did not shoot at sea pirates in the Gulf of Aden, Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky said in comment on a video clip showing crewmembers of the Marshal Shaposhnikov large anti-sub ship fire at small boats, which presumably belonged to Somali pirates. “Our sailors would have never opened fire at people at sea. That is an absurdity, which is not worth a comment,” he said. The three-minute video clip posted on the Internet displays firing sailors, a pirate boat and an approaching ship, and missiles flying from the warship. In the opinion of...

For students in St. Peter, Minn. Santa won’t be visiting this year. The trip from Santa to the kids was cancelled after Muslim immigrants objected because they do not celebrate Christmas. According to the MinnPost, here’s the reasoning behind it: Santa Claus, as portrayed by Dennis Jackson, won’t be visiting students at the Head Start classes in St. Peter this year. Jackson has made appearances the past four years at the classes for students who need help preparing for school, but this year officials said, “No, no, no.” The reason: The classes have many immigrant children who don’t celebrate Christmas,...

This Santa slid down no chimney, but he feels he and the kids got the shaft nonetheless. Dennis Jackson said it was over-reaching cultural sensitivity that led to being told his annual Santa appearances must cease at St. Peter Head Start classes for young children. Jackson said he was told "it was against some people's wishes" for him to make the half-hour appearances for two classes catering to about three dozen children. He said St. Peter Head Start personnel gave him no reason for the action. He's made Santa appearances there the past four years to dispense candy bought at...

Nearly one in three people with Somali ancestry in the United States live in Minnesota, although some activists claim there are more. The 1 in 3 estimate comes from new survey data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The bureau's American Community Survey says there are about 25,000 people with Somali ancestry in Minnesota and about 85,700 in the United States. The other states with large Somali populations are Ohio, Washington and California, but their communities are much smaller than Minnesota's.

Israel and the United States need to learn how they do things in Russia, because the way they do things in Russia usually works. Somalia pirates' clash with Russian navy reveals a gap in rule of lawTheoretically, the [Russian] captain was supposed to hand the detainees and the evidence over to regional police. Not wanting to involve himself in legal wrangling, however, he decided to "release" the pirates instead. And thus they were "set free" in a tiny inflatable raft, with no navigation equipment, 350 miles off the coast of Yemen. The raft has disappeared. In the 21st century, this...

The Somali community in Seattle is on high alert -- in fear of a backlash after an attempted terror arrest at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland. Seattleites with a Somali background are concerned that people will think all Somali Muslims are potential terrorists. "It's a little bit shocked us -- our community," says Sahra Farah, director of the Somali Community Center in Seattle. Farah is stunned that a naturalized U.S. citizen from her home country is accused of trying to kill thousands of people in Portland - in the name of Allah. "Definitely shocked, because sometimes, it's like,...