Well, at least we asked.
The terrorists even have better negotiators than Obama!
******
On Saturday, a group of Somali elders from Gara’ad, mediating on behalf of the pirates, spoke by satellite phone to American officials, according to Abdul Aziz Aw Mahamoud, a district commissioner in the semiautonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. The elders proposed a deal in which the pirates would release Captain Phillips, with no ransom paid, and that the pirates would then be allowed to escape.
But Mr. Abdul Aziz said that the Americans insisted that the pirates be handed over to Puntland authorities, and the elders refused. By noon local time, the Americans cut off communications with the elders, he said.
The four pirates, according to the district commissioner, were split between two clans, one from southern Somalia and one from Puntland.
Mr. Abdul Aziz said he had heard reports that when the attack on the Alabama took place, the pirates were coming from another ship that they had hijacked.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/world/africa/12somalia.html?_r=1