ARGHHH!!! CLINTON: WE "MUST END THE SCOURGE OF PIRACY"

[Rage Against the Machine]

ARGHHH!!!
CLINTON: WE "MUST END THE SCOURGE OF PIRACY"

[Rage Against the Machine]

WASHINGTON — The piracy crisis over a lone hostage in the Indian Ocean took on the familiar air of a cops-and-robbers standoff, with the U.S. Navy seeking advice Thursday from seasoned FBI negotiators.

Their goal: Resolve the incident without military force.

As the FBI joined the delicate negotiations, President Barack Obama, facing one of his first national security tests, declined comment when asked about the standoff.

The incident epitomizes the limits of U.S. power in an age of increasing threat from violence-minded, faceless groups and individuals.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the bureau's hostage negotiating team as "fully engaged" with the military in strategizing ways to retrieve the ship's captain and secure the Maersk Alabama and its roughly 20-person U.S. crew.

The FBI was summoned as the Pentagon substantially stepped up its monitoring of the hostage standoff, sending in P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft and other equipment and securing video footage of the scene.

The pirates were still holding the 55-year-old Phillips, from Underhill, Vt., after the American crew retook the ship Wednesday and the hostage-takers fled into the lifeboat. Hostage negotiators and military officials have been working around the clock to free Phillips.

The FBI is considered the negotiating arm of the U.S. government for international incidents. The crisis negotiation team has been dispatched to more than 100 incidents worldwide since 1990, according to the bureau. The unit, whose motto is "resolution through dialogue" is based at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., about 40 miles south of Washington.


"We're deeply concerned and we're following it very closely," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "More generally, the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy."

The pirate-hostage drama was the first of its kind in modern history involving a U.S. crew.

"We have watched with alarm the increasing threat of piracy," said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser at the White House. "The administration has an intense interest in the security of navigation."

The Bainbridge was among several U.S. ships, including the cruiser USS Gettysburg, that had been patrolling in the region. But they were about 345 miles and several hours away when the Maersk Alabama was seized, officials said.

The Obama administration has so far done no better than its predecessor to thwart the growing threat of piracy. Since January, pirates have staged 66 attacks, and they are still holding 14 ships and 260 crew members as hostages, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a watchdog group based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There is too much area to cover and too many commercial vessels to protect for full-time patrols or escorts. U.S. legal authority is limited, even in the case of American hostages and a cargo of donated American food. And the pirates, emboldened by fat ransoms, have little reason to fear being caught.

"The military component here is always going to be marginal," said Peter Chalk, an expert on maritime national security at the private Rand Corp.

According to the Navy, it would take 61 ships to control the shipping route in the Gulf of Aden, which is just a fraction of the 1.1 million square miles where the pirates have operated. A U.S.-backed international anti-piracy coalition currently has 12 to 16 ships patrolling the region at any one time.

Along the Somali coastline, an area roughly as long as the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, pirate crews have successfully held commercial ships hostage for days or weeks until they are ransomed. In the past week, pressured by naval actions off Somalia, the pirates have shifted their operations farther out into the Indian Ocean, expanding the crisis.

___

Associated Press Military Writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

[Rage Against the Machine]

FILE - This undated image made available in London, Wednesday April 8, 2009 by Maersk Line, shows the 17,000-ton container ship Maersk Alabama, when it was operating under the name Maersk Alva, which has been hijacked by Somalia pirates with 20 crew members aboard while sailing from Salalah in Oman to the Kenyan port of Mombassa via Djibouti. (AP Photo/Maersk Line, file, ho)

[Rage Against the Machine]

Tom Ganjamiewriter, didsomebodysaytom.blogspot.com
Posted April 9, 2009 | 11:09 AM (EST)
Times Are Great If You Happen To Be A Pirate Beat Writer

It has been quite a week for pirate-related news. First off, Somali pirates hijacked a cargo ship with 20 American soldiers on board. As Obama attempts to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it appears this new high seas threat to Americans could send our brave men and women embarking on one more swashbuckling adventure before they get home. However, with the war on drugs smoldering on the Mexican border, perhaps we could take another route in both of these fights. Somehow Obama needs to pull off a crazy scheme to convince the pirates to fight the Mexican drug lords in an elaborate double cross to eliminate all our enemies like at the end of The Usual Suspects. Find a way to get Al Queada in the mix, and we can end these skirmishes for us in one big, action-packed Mexican (and pirate and terrorist) standoff.

If the Somali pirates go down, however, it seems another pirate upstart is already gunning to take their place. CNN reports that Nigerian pirates are starting to copy the tactics of their more-successful counterparts off the coast of Somalia. How ironic -- the Nigerians are pirating the Somali's brand of piracy. Can pirates sue for copyright infringement?

While news about real pirates is exciting enough, the world of fictional pirates was also turned on its head this week. It seems the late Michael Crichton left behind a posthumous novel called Pirate Latitude about buccaneers in the 17th Century. It seems ill-timed, then, that Variety announced Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski announced today that he is done making pirate movies and is instead setting his sights on a movie adaptation of the game Clue. Not so fast, Mr. Verbinski. You are the current go-to guy on pirate movies, and here comes a pirate novel from the writer who gave us Jurassic Park. Last time I checked that movie sold a hell of a lot more DVDs than the first adaption of Clue. With the coast of Africa about to explode in all out pirate war and an almost guaranteed best selling pirate extravaganza from Crichton, is it really a good idea to place your bets on a mystery board game? Not in this economy, sir. The only sure bet seems to be writing about pirates. Stick to what you know.

[Penny]

Pirate-Held Captain Tried To Escape, Was Quickly Recaptured
ANNE GEARAN | April 10, 2009 09:07 AM EST |  


WASHINGTON — An American sea captain held hostage by pirates jumped into the ocean and tried to swim away, but he was retaken by the Somali bandits, military officials said.

Capt. Richard Phillips, taken hostage when pirates tried to seize his ship on Wednesday, appeared to be unharmed after his escape attempt around midnight local time in the open ocean off the Somali coast, Defense Department officials said Friday.

The pirates are holding Phillips aboard a drifting lifeboat, with U.S. officials trying to negotiate his release.

After his recapture, Phillips could be seen aboard moving around and talking aboard the lifeboat, from the vantage point of a U.S. Navy ship patrolling nearby, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the sensitive, unfolding operation.

Phillips, 53, was taken hostage aboard the enclosed lifeboat with four pirates who fled when his crew overpowered pirates trying to take their U.S.-flagged ship, the Maersk Alabama.

Negotiations are taking place between the pirates and the captain of the USS Bainbridge, who is taking direction from the FBI, the defense officials said. The destroyer arrived on the scene Thursday and is within sight of the lifeboat.

The bandits are communicating with other pirate vessels by satellite phone, officials said. Pirate vessels apparently were also heading to the scene to provide them backup.

[Penny]

Somali pirates vow to take on US military might if attacked
Four gunmen holding American hostage in Indian Ocean remain defiant as US navy sends more warships to end stand-off

Interactive: The Maersk Alabama's capture by Somali pirates
Xan Rice in Nairobi and Matthew Weaver
guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 April 2009 09.57 BST
Article history

The family of the American captain being held by pirates off the coast of Somalia say he offered himself as a hostage to save the rest of the crew Link to this video
Stranded Somali pirates holding an American hostage in the Indian Ocean under the gaze of a US destroyer vowed today to fight if they are attacked.


The US navy last night called in a team of FBI negotiators and moved the USS Bainbridge into position to try to secure the release of Richard Phillips, who was being held by four Somali gunmen in a lifeboat some 300 miles off the Horn of Africa. But despite an apparently hopeless position, the pirates showed no signs of giving in.


"We are safe and we are not afraid of the Americans," one of the pirates told Reuters by satellite phone. "We will defend ourselves if attacked."


The statement intensifies the confrontation between the pirates and the world's greatest military power as more American warships make their way to the stand-off.



The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said it appeared the lifeboat, which was no longer tethered to the Maersk Alabama, had run out of fuel. Helicopters had also been deployed to the scene, while a P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft was securing aerial footage. "FBI negotiators stationed at Quantico [in Virginia] have been called by the navy to assist with negotiations with the Somali pirates and are fully engaged in this matter," an FBI spokesman said.


Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, had offered himself as a hostage during a dramatic turn of events in which the gunmen escaped in the ship's lifeboat with their captive after the 20-strong American crew overpowered them and retook control of the vessel. A spokesman for Maersk, the largest container shipping company in the world, said yesterday that Phillips was believed to be unharmed. His family had gathered at his farmhouse in Vermont waiting for news.



Andrew Mwangura, the head of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said the Alabama had left the scene and was sailing under armed guard towards Mombasa, Kenya – its original destination – where it was expected to dock tomorrow. None of the crew members were hurt in the attack.


"They will release the captain, I think, maybe today or tomorrow, but in exchange for something. Maybe some payment or compensation, and definitely free passage back home," Mwangura told Reuters.



A stalemate appeared to have been established in which neither side had much room for negotiation. The gunmen know they are likely to be arrested if they give their hostage up while still far out to sea. In Harardheere, one of the notorious pirate strongholds in Somalia, an associate of the gang said that two boatloads of gunmen had left the port to try to assist their colleagues.


"Our friends are still holding the captain but they cannot move, they are afraid of the warships. We want a ransom and, of course, the captain is our shield. The warships might not destroy the boat as long as he is on board."


The Alabama was the sixth ship to be hijacked off Somalia's Indian Ocean coast in a week, and is believed to be the first American-flagged merchant vessel to be attacked by pirates anywhere since the early 19th century. The surge in attacks has coincided with a return to calm seas after the monsoon period, and has seen the main pirate gangs shift their focus away from their favoured hunting ground in the Gulf of Aden, off northern Somalia, which is now patrolled by at least 15 warships in separate EU, US and Nato-led forces.


It is likely that the pirates used a previously captured mothership from which to launch their speedboat before attacking the Alabama. Normally at least nine or 10 gunmen form part of an attack team, and it is not known why just four men armed with AK-47s tried to take the large container ship, usually a difficult vessel to hijack due to its speed and the height of its deck. The ship is carrying thousands of tonnes of food aid, some of it meant for Somalia.


According to second mate Ken Quinn, who spoke by telephone to CNN, the pirates sank their speedboat shortly after boarding the Alabama early on Wednesday. The crew managed to regain control of the ship from the pirates by "brute force", according to another crew member's account. Phillips is reported to have convinced the gunmen to board the lifeboat after agreeing to go with them in order to secure the safety of his fellow sailors.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/10/somali-pirates-hostage-us-miltary