Posted on 04/18/2009 4:55:59 AM PDT by Jonny foreigner
Dutch commandos have freed 20 people who had been captured by Somali pirates after the raiders attacked a Greek-managed tanker, Nato says.
The captives, Yemeni fishermen, were freed as the Dutch forces captured seven pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
They were aboard a pirate "mother ship" from which smaller craft attack commercial vessels.
The captured pirates are alleged to have attacked the tanker using assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
A Dutch warship from the Nato force responded to a distress call from the tanker and saw the pirates fleeing toward a Yemeni fishing trawler, Nato spokesman Alexandre Santos Fernandes said.
Nato troops boarded the vessel and freed the 20 Yemenis who, he says, had been held hostage since Sunday.
The pirates were set free, the Associated Press news agency reports, because under Dutch law they could not be held at sea under the circumstances in which they were captured.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Typical Socialist Response.
The only thing pirates really understand is being dead.
Mr. Bumble?
With what the US, the Dutch, and the French have done recently it seems like the world is finally going to deal with these jerks.
Kudos to the Dutch commandos for freeing the captives. It’s not their fault they had to let the pirates go and I bet they didn’t like that decision any more than we do.
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