AreaCode707
Lifer
- Sep 21, 2001
- 18,447
- 133
- 106
Obama will likely let this be handled by ambassadors and diplomats who are specially trained to do this job... That's kind of the point of having them.
Brainonska511
Lifer
- Dec 10, 2005
- 28,653
- 13,782
- 136
Ambassadors and diplomats? They're pirates! Somalia isn't exactly a country under real government control.
cubeless
Diamond Member
- Sep 17, 2001
- 4,295
- 1
- 81
no... we should tell them that when they started being pirates it was under the previous administration, and now we want to work with them to fix why they hate america...
and since the boat has been taken back by those arrogant swabbies, it's mostly irrelevant...
and since the boat has been taken back by those arrogant swabbies, it's mostly irrelevant...
Amused
Elite Member
- Apr 14, 2001
- 57,347
- 19,505
- 146
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,513258,00.html
Apparently they are holding the captain hostage.
U.S. Crew Regain Control of Hijacked Ship, Negotiate Captain's Release
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
American crew members aboard a U.S.-flagged ship hijacked by Somali pirates Wednesday were able to regain control of the vessel, but a crew member says the ship's captain is still being held hostage.
Speaking on the ship's satellite phone, one of the 20 crew members on the cargo ship, Maersk Alabama, said negotiations are under way for the captain's release.
He said the crew had been taken hostage but managed to seize one pirate and then successfully negotiate their own release.
The crew regained control of the ship and the pirates are now in a lifeboat. But the unidentified man also said that they are holding the ship's captain hostage in the vessel.
Defense Department officials confirmed that one pirate is in custody. A U.S. official said the status of the other pirates is unknown but they were reported to "be in the water."
"All the crew members are trained in security detail in how to deal with piracy," Maersk CEO John Reinhart told reporters. "As merchant vessels we do not carry arms. We have ways to push back, but we do not carry arms."
John Harris, CEO of HollowPoint Security Services, which specializes in maritime security, said that the crew's overtaking the pirates could help prevent future hijackings, especially since the military can't protect the entire high seas.
"Any time you can get intel from them, they can give you any kind of significant information, they more than likely will not, but anything we can get will always help us in the future," Harris told FOX News.
"Naval vessels ... can't be everywhere at one time, just like law enforcement," he said, noting that the U.S. Navy has been protecting the most vulnerable shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean.
"If you saturate an area long enough in the shipping lanes, if you saturate it with war ships long enough, they venture out. In this case that's what they did. They want 350 miles out of the coast where no Naval vessels were present," he said.
Click here for photos.
As for the boldness of the pirates taking a ship operating under a U.S. flag, Harris said pirates don't care which ship they grab.
"We have not seen it matters at all. This is a business to them. They are not intended on carrying what cargo we're carrying. All they want to do is see a dollar figure. They know if they catch a big ship, they get big money. All they want is ransom out of this. They are not worried about crew or cargo," Harris said.
Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman said earlier Wednesday he has "no information to suggest the 20 crew members of the Maersk Alabama have been harmed by the pirates."
During its one communication with the ship, Maersk was told the crew was safe, Reinhart said. He would not release the names of the crew members.
Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said that it was the first pirate attack "involving U.S. nationals and a U.S.-flagged vessel in recent memory."
Wednesday's incident was the first such hostage-taking involving U.S. citizens in 200 years. In December 2008, Somali pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise ship with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel.
The top two commanders of the ship graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, the Cape Cod Times reported Wednesday.
Andrea Phillips, the wife of Capt. Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vt., said her husband has sailed in those waters "for quite some time" and a hijacking was perhaps "inevitable."
The Cape Cod Times reported his second in command, Capt. Shane Murphy, was also among the 20 Americans aboard the Maersk Alabama.
Capt. Joseph Murphy, a professor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, says his son is a 2001 graduate who recently talked to a class about the dangers of pirates.
The newspaper reported the 33-year-old Murphy had phoned his mother to say he was safe.
The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, at the time it was hijacked, for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk.
Robert A. Wood, Deputy State Department Spokesman, told reporters the ship was carrying "vegetable oil, corn soy blend and other basic food commodities bound for Africa."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Apparently they are holding the captain hostage.
U.S. Crew Regain Control of Hijacked Ship, Negotiate Captain's Release
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
American crew members aboard a U.S.-flagged ship hijacked by Somali pirates Wednesday were able to regain control of the vessel, but a crew member says the ship's captain is still being held hostage.
Speaking on the ship's satellite phone, one of the 20 crew members on the cargo ship, Maersk Alabama, said negotiations are under way for the captain's release.
He said the crew had been taken hostage but managed to seize one pirate and then successfully negotiate their own release.
The crew regained control of the ship and the pirates are now in a lifeboat. But the unidentified man also said that they are holding the ship's captain hostage in the vessel.
Defense Department officials confirmed that one pirate is in custody. A U.S. official said the status of the other pirates is unknown but they were reported to "be in the water."
"All the crew members are trained in security detail in how to deal with piracy," Maersk CEO John Reinhart told reporters. "As merchant vessels we do not carry arms. We have ways to push back, but we do not carry arms."
John Harris, CEO of HollowPoint Security Services, which specializes in maritime security, said that the crew's overtaking the pirates could help prevent future hijackings, especially since the military can't protect the entire high seas.
"Any time you can get intel from them, they can give you any kind of significant information, they more than likely will not, but anything we can get will always help us in the future," Harris told FOX News.
"Naval vessels ... can't be everywhere at one time, just like law enforcement," he said, noting that the U.S. Navy has been protecting the most vulnerable shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean.
"If you saturate an area long enough in the shipping lanes, if you saturate it with war ships long enough, they venture out. In this case that's what they did. They want 350 miles out of the coast where no Naval vessels were present," he said.
Click here for photos.
As for the boldness of the pirates taking a ship operating under a U.S. flag, Harris said pirates don't care which ship they grab.
"We have not seen it matters at all. This is a business to them. They are not intended on carrying what cargo we're carrying. All they want to do is see a dollar figure. They know if they catch a big ship, they get big money. All they want is ransom out of this. They are not worried about crew or cargo," Harris said.
Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman said earlier Wednesday he has "no information to suggest the 20 crew members of the Maersk Alabama have been harmed by the pirates."
During its one communication with the ship, Maersk was told the crew was safe, Reinhart said. He would not release the names of the crew members.
Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said that it was the first pirate attack "involving U.S. nationals and a U.S.-flagged vessel in recent memory."
Wednesday's incident was the first such hostage-taking involving U.S. citizens in 200 years. In December 2008, Somali pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise ship with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel.
The top two commanders of the ship graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, the Cape Cod Times reported Wednesday.
Andrea Phillips, the wife of Capt. Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vt., said her husband has sailed in those waters "for quite some time" and a hijacking was perhaps "inevitable."
The Cape Cod Times reported his second in command, Capt. Shane Murphy, was also among the 20 Americans aboard the Maersk Alabama.
Capt. Joseph Murphy, a professor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, says his son is a 2001 graduate who recently talked to a class about the dangers of pirates.
The newspaper reported the 33-year-old Murphy had phoned his mother to say he was safe.
The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, at the time it was hijacked, for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk.
Robert A. Wood, Deputy State Department Spokesman, told reporters the ship was carrying "vegetable oil, corn soy blend and other basic food commodities bound for Africa."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
It would probably take a lot of work to make sure she's seaworthy, there are likely almost no sailors still in the fleet who know how to work/maintain her 16 inch guns, there is likely almost no ammunition available for them and the ammo that is around is probably of questionable use having sat on the shelf for almost 20 years, the pirates are probably operating from a coastal city filled with poor, law abiding citizens whose deaths would create a PR nightmare for the US while doing very little to disrupt the pirates' operations, etc. Need I go on?
Every time something happens overseas I love seeing the psychopathic armchair generals come out of the woodwork on here and scream for a bloodbath to fix whatever problem we have.
Wasn't USA's first military victories against pirates? As I recall, we actually went in and attacked their bases of operation and won. We will not stop these pirates until we attack their staging areas on land.
- Oct 30, 2000
- 42,589
- 5
- 0
Control does not mean that all people are accounted for. It means that they can manuever the ship from the helm using the engines.
The captain could have been removed or being held as a hostage in a confined space by some of the pirates as leverage.
spacejamz
Lifer
- Mar 31, 2003
- 10,960
- 1,657
- 126
I got the impression that one pirate was in custody and the other pirates were 'in the water' (i.e., there were none left on the ship)...
EDIT: I totally missed this when I read the article the first time:
But the unidentified man also said that they are holding the ship's captain hostage in the vessel.
However, the sentence before states:
The crew regained control of the ship and the pirates are now in a lifeboat. I assumed this meant all of the pirates...(guess that's what happens when you 'assume')...
cubeless
Diamond Member
- Sep 17, 2001
- 4,295
- 1
- 81
video keel hauling the captive pirate, show it to the guy holding the captain, and tell him he has 5 minutes to release the captain... the bad guy knows he's in deep shit already... if he kills the captain then he gets the trip around the keel, too...
spacejamz
Lifer
- Mar 31, 2003
- 10,960
- 1,657
- 126
Somalia's notorious pirates faded from the headlines for the first three months of 2009 as a massive international naval force moved in. But the pirates have begun operating further away from warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden. And they no longer have to contend with the choppy waters that always plague the seas off Somalia in the early part of the year.
The U.S. Navy confirmed that the ship was hijacked early Wednesday about 280 miles (450 kilometers) southeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia.
K1052
Elite Member
- Aug 21, 2003
- 52,607
- 46,270
- 136
Actually part of the requirement when they retired them was that the navy had to preserve the ships and have plans in place for a rapid reactivation, should it be required. Provided the shells were stored properly they'll work just fine.
Efforts should also be made to locate the tender ships the pirates are using and sink them as well in addition to taking them out in ports.
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