Posted on 04/08/2009 3:42:47 PM PDT by Cindy
You wouldn’t need an armed crew. One trained guy with a .50 cal could do the job. You could sink their boats from half a mile away.
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53890
Pentagon Official Mum on Pirate Hostage Details
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 10, 2009 – A senior Pentagon spokesman today declined to provide details on the ongoing situation involving a U.S. maritime captain being held hostage by pirates in a small boat adrift off the coast of Somalia.
“There will be a point in time where we can be fully forthcoming with what the military role was and our thinking on it, and why we did what we did,” Bryan Whitman told reporters. “That time is not right now.”
The paramount concern of all agencies involved is obtaining the safe return of the hostage, Whitman said.
Armed pirates attacked the cargo ship Maersk Alabama about 300 miles off the Somali coast on April 8. The unarmed ship’s 20-member American crew eventually regained control of the vessel, but the captain offered himself as a hostage to forestall violence.
The captain and his four pirate captors continue to share a small boat that’s adrift in open sea. Whitman said there is “no information to suggest the ship’s captain has been physically harmed.”
The Navy is monitoring the situation, Whitman said, noting that at least two vessels, the destroyer USS Bainbridge and the guided-missile frigate USS Halyburton, are now in the vicinity.
“I’m not going to comment on other resources that might join in this effort, beyond the Halyburton and the Bainbridge, at this point,” Whitman said.
Related Articles:
Pirate Hostage’s Safe Return is Primary Concern, U.S. Officials Say
Navy Crew Arrives to Assess Pirate Situation
Pirate Attack Foiled by Ship’s Crew, Defense Officials Say
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2226693/posts
Somali Piracy and Pakistani Terror Plots — this blast is HOT!
COVERT RADIO SHOW: The Daily Blast ^ | April 10, 2009 | n/a
Posted on April 10, 2009 4:34:16 PM PDT by Cindy
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2226700/posts
Pirates Take German Ship Towards Comrades Off Somalia
Radionz.co.nz ^ | 11 April 2009 | Staff
Posted on April 10, 2009 4:45:16 PM PDT by BarnacleCenturion
Pirates on Friday sailed a hijacked German freighter and its crew toward a lifeboat off Somalia where an American hostage is being held.
They are reportedly doing so an attempt to help their comrades in a standoff with the US Navy.
Four pirates are holding the American captain of a cargo ship, Richard Phillips, in a drifting lifeboat and demanding $US2 million for his release and a guarantee of their own safety.
They have been holding him since a foiled attempt on Wednesday to hijack the 17,000-tonne, Danish-owned Maersk Alabama in the Indian Ocean.
A destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, is close by.
Another group that hijacked a 20,000-tonne German container vessel, the Hansa Stavanger, a week ago is reportedly heading to the scene of the standoff.
I take it that’s pretty fast.
Blog:
Note: The following blog entry is a quote:
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/197203.php
April 10, 2009
Pirates Reportedly Demand Ransom After Captain Phillips Tried To Escape
This tugs on my heart strings. Damn, If only our snipers had their scopes on these arseholes heads, the standoff would have been over. This sucks testes.
A Somali negotiator said Friday pirates holding American ship captain Richard Phillips hostage want a $2 million ransom and are ready to kill Phillips if attacked.
The announcement by the unidentified Somali, who helped negotiate a ransom paid last year to pirates who seized a Ukrainian ship carrying tanks, comes the same day Phillips was recaptured after he made an escape attempt from the life boat where he is being held hostage.
The negotiator said he has spoken with a pirate leader on the ground in Somalia who is coordinating action on the lifeboat adrift in the Indian Ocean. He says the plan is to get the hostage to shore to negotiate from a better position.
Sometime overnight, captain Phillips got away for a short period, and jumped off the lifeboat in an attempt to swim away, probably managing to escape through the lifeboat’s backdoor. The drama was witnessed at some distance by the U.S. Navy, but it reportedly happened so quickly they could not provide assistance.
Defense officials said that one of the pirates fired an automatic weapon when Phillips tried to swim to safet,[sic] but it was not clear whether the pirate fired at the fleeing hostage, or into the air.
Also on Friday officials said other pirates sought to reinforce their colleagues by sailing hijacked ships with other captives aboard to the scene of the standoff.[...]
Mohamed Samaw, a resident of the pirate stronghold in Eyl, Somalia, who claims to have a “share” in a British-owned ship hijacked Monday, said four foreign ships held by pirates are heading toward the lifeboat. A total of 54 hostages are on two of the ships — citizens of China, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, the Philippines, Tuvalu, Indonesia and Taiwan.
Terrorist pirates using hostages of other ships is certainly dangerous for us. Who in the hell knows how China, Russia, etc will react to save their hostages let alone Captain Phillips.
Getting Phillips to shore would be devastating, alQaeda linked al-Shabaab would undoubtedly join in.
By Stable Hand at April 10, 2009 01:02 PM
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2226846/posts
Let us thank the Somali pirates
American Thinker ^ | April 11, 2009 | James Lewis
Posted on April 10, 2009 10:52:19 PM PDT by neverdem
Flashback: It’s 1979, and President Jimmy Carter is facing a hostage crisis, with American diplomats being kidnapped by Islamist “students” in Tehran. Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew our Cold War ally, the Shah of Iran, with the tacit of the Carter Administration, because it thought of the murderous Ayatollah as “some kind of saint,” in the words of former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young.
Jimmy and Zbig have been trying to explain their disastrous ignorance ever since; and because they are mentally stuck in appeasement thinking, they have infected the Obamanites with the same plague bacilli.
Flashforward to 2008, and an American merchant marine captain is being held hostage by Islamist pirates off the coast of Somalia. It’s a repeat of 1979, and the world is watching to see if Obama is going to be any more effective than Jimmy Carter was.
Obama may think this is a “distraction”. The rest of the world sees it as a test. And so, far Obama is flunking. The world will draw its own conclusions very quickly
Thank heavens for the pirates! Why? Because we must know as soon as possible if the Obamanites are as incompetent and foolish as they proudly claim to be — or whether they can summon up the guts to try to rescue the captain. We have plenty of special ops forces who are trained for hostage rescue. The West has forty years of experience in knocking over hostage takers, as Israelis did in Entebbe. But similar methods have been perfected by now, as shown most recently in Colombia, where US forces advised the Colombian government how to deal with another hostage situation.
It always comes with real risk, both to our own troops and to the hostages. And yes, Mr. Obama, we may have to knock some pirates’ heads as well.
If Obama fails to take action, watch for Russia to make a move on the Ukraine. China will get more aggressive toward Taiwan. Iran will openly throw sandals at Obama effigies, and the rest of the world will realize — uh-oh, no more cop on the international beat. North Korea will launch another missile over Japan — pahdon me, another satellite launch will somehow go astray, heading toward Hawaii.
That means one of two things: either the aggressors start winning, or somebody else has to play the international cop — the role the United States has carried for sixty years.
So who do you want to play the world’s cop?
Russia will happily volunteer do it for Europe, since Europe won’t do it for itself. China could squeeze concessions from Japan and South Korea to stop the Norks. And in the Middle East it will either be Israel — which can protect the Arab countries from nuclear attack by Iran — or it will be the mad mullahs of Qom. I would guess that the Israelis will bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, with the covert help of Arab Gulf states.
Welcome to the age of American weakness. The whole world, we were told in the last eight years, wanted to bring the US down a notch or two. Well, just be careful what you wish for.
Maybe we should thank the Somali pirates for testing Obama this early in the new administration.
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2226858/posts
Pirates Bring German Ship Into US Stand-Off ( off Somali Coast)
Sky News ^ | 4:14am UK, Saturday April 11, 2009 | Sky News
Posted on April 10, 2009 11:46:29 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Pirates are moving a hijacked German freighter into position as a reinforcement in a stand-off with the US Navy over an American hostage.
The Hansa Stavanger is heading to the area in the Indian Ocean where cargo ship captain Richard Phillips was seized, a pirate source said.
The 20,000-ton ship, which was taken a week ago between Kenya and the Seychelles, has a crew of 24, of whom five are German.
Fox News correspondent Greg Palkot, who is in the Kenyan port of Mombasa, told Sky News: “What the pirates are saying they intend to do is transfer the American and the four pirates from the lifeboat onto this other boat.
“They think the Americans wouldn’t attack one or the other because they would be afraid of killing people.”
The pirates holding Phillips have demanded $2m (£1.6m) for his release and a guarantee of their own safety.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2226861/posts
“Hijacked German Vessel Heads Back to Somalia After Attempt to Reach Standoff”
Foxnews.com ^ | 04/11/09 | uncredited
Posted on April 11, 2009 12:04:40 AM PDT by Big_Monkey
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/11/ship-captain-tried-escape-pirates-adding-reinforce/
“U.S. merchant captain fails in attempt to escape”
By Sara A. Carter
Saturday, April 11, 2009
SNIPPET: “Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder said he could not discuss details of the ongoing operations to free the hostage.
“We’re still monitoring the situation and assessing the options available to us,” Col. Ryder told The Washington Times.”
BLOG:
http://threatswatch.org/commentary/2009/04/somali-piracy-a-solution/
“Somali Piracy: A Solution
Security Aboard Ships - Not USS Sledgehammers - To Fight At Point of Pirates’ Attacks”
By Steve Schippert | April 9, 2009
SNIPPET: “Still, the piracy has long been the most widely covered news out of Somalia for Americans. And for this reason, many of them might be shocked to know that al-Qaeda’s Somali franchise al-Shabaab actually controls much of the country.”
SNIPPET: “The only tenable solution is to put the prevention at the point of risk: Aboard the vessel.
It is the only solution - sans magical liquidation of all pirates and their havens - that is fast-reacting enough or cost effective enough. (Have you ever checked the expense tab of operating a US Navy destroyer for a 24-hour period of steaming? It’s an expense only a stimulus’s mother could love.)”
ADDING to post no. 32:
ON THE INTERNET:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/alshabaab
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/alshabab
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2227225/posts
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/africa/-/1066/559618/-/item/0/-/ttgyc7/-/index.html
“Somali pirates ‘smell money’ as the good times return”
By REUTERS Posted Saturday, April 11 2009 at 17:51
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2227241/posts
“Obama Keeps A Weather Eye On America’s Own Piracy Problem [A National Embarrasment]”
London Times ^ | April 11, 2009
Posted on April 11, 2009 5:26:41 PM PDT by Steelfish
From The Sunday Times April 12, 2009
“Obama keeps a weather eye on America’s own piracy problem”
Sarah Baxter
SNIPPET: “The radio silence from Barack Obama over the pirate crisis is a sign of his natural caution mixed with a deepening apprehension of the perils of finding himself at sea.
“He is staying apprised of the situation,” was all Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, would say about Captain Richard Phillips, the American merchant seaman being held hostage by Somali pirates.
Obama has let his secretary of state do the talking – the same Hillary Clinton who claimed during the presidential election campaign that he was unfit to answer an emergency 3am call.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3700030,00.html
“Officials: FBI launches criminal piracy probe”
Published: 04.11.09, 20:12 / Israel News
SNIPPET: “US officials say the FBI has begun a criminal investigation into the Somali pirates who hijacked a US Ship and are holding its captain hostage. Two officials said the bureau’s New York office is handling the case. That office oversees investigations involving US citizens in Africa.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2227293/posts
“DFU YouTube SING-ALONG: Barack Obama Pirate Song
DFU NEWS OF THE DAY IN SONG ^ | 4-11-09 | Lyrics and Video, Doug from Upland”
Posted on 04/11/2009 6:54:29 PM PDT by doug from upland
#
VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3ah4D-xAc
A little out of order on the date/timeline of events, but this is an important snippet to archive here.
#
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46422
“Pirates Summon Reinforcements Who Are Using Russian, German Hostages As Human Shields”
Friday, April 10, 2009
By Katharine Houreld and Malkhadir M. Muhumed, Associated Press
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2226923/posts?page=74#74
#
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2226923/posts
“Andrew C. McCarthy: Pirates Test the ‘Rule of Law’”
National Review Online ^ | April 10, 2009 | Andrew C. McCarthy
Posted on April 11, 2009 5:56:12 AM PDT by kellynla
Note:Photos included.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/12/french-hostage-rescue-from-somali-pirates
“Revealed: the tense moments when French commandos stormed a boat hijacked by Somali pirates”
Paul Gallagher
The Observer, Sunday 12 April 2009
Article history
SNIPPET: “A series of dramatic photographs were released by the French army last night showing the moments elite soldiers rescued members of a family held hostage for a week by Somali pirates. One of the hostages was killed during the operation.”
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