Posted on 04/12/2009 11:00:01 AM PDT by bimboeruption
MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) - An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a U.S. Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior U.S. intelligence official said. One of the pirates was wounded and in custody after a swift firefight, the official said.
Capt. Richard Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby.
The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A government official and others in Somali with knowledge of the situation had reported hours earlier that negotiations for Phillips' release had broken down.
The district commissioner of the central Mudug region said talks went on all day Saturday, with clan elders from his area talking by satellite telephone and through a translator with Americans, but collapsed late Saturday night.
"The negotiations between the elders and American officials have broken down. The reason is American officials wanted to arrest the pirates in Puntland and elders refused the arrest of the pirates," said the commissioner, Abdi Aziz Aw Yusuf. He said he organized initial contacts between the elders and the Americans.
Two other Somalis, one involved in the negotiations and another in contact with the pirates, also said the talks collapsed because of the U.S. insistence that the pirates be arrested and brought to justice.
Phillips' crew of 19 American sailors reached safe harbor in Kenya's northeast port of Mombasa on Saturday night under guard of U.S. Navy Seals, exhilarated by their freedom but mourning the absence of Phillips.
Crew members said their ordeal had begun with the Somali pirates hauling themselves up from a small boat bobbing on the surface of the Indian Ocean far below.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
God Bless Our Military!
YES! YES! YES! Excellent great news!
Hooray!
Wonderful news! Thank you for posting :-)
“doing happy dance”
Well, OK. Now we only have to arrest one guy. I call it a win-win situation.
Get back infidels, I Kill you!
....what? I am dead? Damn those Navy Seals!
SEALS RULE-—TERRORISTS DIE. Thank you GOD for the Captain’s rescue,
Hope the SEALs don’t get into any trouble - the FBI doesn’t like it when one of their crime scenes is disturbed.
I guess Coburn and Bayh’s statement had finally made our whatever-in-chief to allow our Navy to be our Navy.
Don’t’cha just love it? 8^D
Where will they take the prisoner, hm?
Nice to see that that Navy is still a community that won’t be “organized.”
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NAVY!
God bless the Navy SEALS
I KNEW the Lord would deliver today! I knew it in my heart!!!!!! Thank you Jesus and Happy Easter!
Now we should destroy the port, kill the elders, issue Letters of Marque, and post a bounty on pirates’ heads.
Great news! This is an Easter Present presented to the American people by the USN. He has risen!
As a good detective friend of mine said “ the FBI couldn't follow a menstruating elephant in a snow bank.”
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