UN tsunami aid ship hijacked off the coast of Somalia
Sunday Times (South Africa) ^ | Thursday June 30, 2005 14:58 - (SA)
NAIROBI - A United Nations-chartered vessel carrying aid for Somali tsunami victims has been hijacked off the coast of Somalia amid a flurry of new piracy warnings for the area, the World Food Programme (WFP) has said.
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The WFP hijacking was the sixth reported piracy incident in Somali waters since March, which included one earlier this month in which a US naval destroyer intervened to save a besieged vessel.
All five earlier incidents have involved armed pirates who, in at least two cases, took crews hostage.
In March, the US advised western shipping firms of possible speedboat-launched terrorist attacks on vessels in the Indian Ocean off the coast of east Africa, including Somali waters.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1433828/posts
This area has been a hot bed of piracy and the local nations will need to take a more agressive stance. Shippers, however, are handicaped in that these straits are the best channels to get products through the area with out a long route further south.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/06/30/newtaliban050630.html
Seventeen U.S. personnel were believed to be on the aircraft when it went down Tuesday while on a mission against al-Qaeda fighters in a mountainous region near Asadabad, in Kunar province.
Another seven troops are unaccounted for, some of them soldiers who were already on the ground when the Chinook helicopter crashed.
But the military is still hopeful that some of those who are missing are still alive. However, it's possible they could have been captured.
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11 missing. Protect them, Lord