Pirates seize US Vessel about 300 miles off the Samalie coast yesterday with 20 American
sailors on board....the White house issued a statement saying that they are monitoring the situation in the Indian Ocean and the safe return of the Americans on board is the priority of the White House.....updates will be coming as they are available....
Tony

that should be intersting,,lets see how he handles this one..thanks

that should be intersting,,lets see how he handles this one..thanks

Yep ! :lol:

I’m sure his reaction to these terrorists will be, “I’m sorry that America is so evil that pushed you to the point of taking hostages. Please let them go and I will have you declared a bank so that we can give you a giant bailout.”


.

I think he will WIMP OUT!!

Why does every thread about every news item have to degenerate into a partisan turd fight?

Everything under Bush was Clinton's fault and everything under Obama is Obama's fault. I understand that. Even Obama understands that and gone as far as to say, "I'm the President and ultimately, it's my responsibility".

Some folks don't want the Bush years examined and if I was a Republican, I wouldn't want to go there either. Let's move past this partisan bull****. There are enough blogs on the Left, and on the Right, where you can discuss these things if you want to.

This is an FTA forum with a place for news items. This is a piracy thing in now world-famous pirate infested waters. Can't we discuss why this Dutch ship had an all American crew, what kind of a cargo it was carrying, how come a few men on small boats hijack a big ship so easily or what would be the best solution to this piracy problem without turning everything to s*** by throwing in unresolvable, discussion killing partisan c***?

I could reply to both the comments above, as I've done in the past, but that will only lead to the perfectly understandable and justified closing of yet another thread, so what would be the point?

Enjoy yourselves.

Over and out.

10 mins agoes update:
US crew reportedly takes over ship from pirates

WASHINGTON – The crew of a U.S.-flag ship seized by pirates off Somalia is believed to have retaken the vessel, the Pentagon said Wednesday, even as a shaken national security establishment confronted troubling questions about the hostage-taking at high sea.

Capt. Joseph Murphy, an instructor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, told The Associated Press the Department of Defense that his son Shane, the second in command on the ship, had called him to say the crew had regained control.

"The crew is back in control of the ship," a U.S. official said at midday, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record. "It's reported that one pirate is on board under crew control — the other three were trying to flee," the official said. The status of the other pirates was unknown, the official said, but they were reported to "be in the water."

The crew apparently contacted the private shipping that it works for. That company, Maersk, scheduled a noon news conference in Norfolk, Va, defense officials said.

Somali pirates today hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard, hundreds of miles from the nearest American military vessel in some of the most dangerous waters in the world.

The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. It was the sixth ship seized within a week, a rise that analysts attribute to a new strategy by Somali pirates who are operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.

The company confirmed that the U.S.-flagged vessel has 20 U.S. nationals onboard.

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." She did not give an exact timeframe.

When asked how the U.S. Navy plans to deal with the hijacking, Campbell said: "It's fair to say we are closely monitoring the situation, but we will not discuss nor speculate on current and future military operations."

It was not clear whether the pirates knew they were hijacking a ship with American crew.

"It's a very significant foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration," said Graeme Gibbon Brooks, managing director of the British company Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service Ltd. "Their citizens are in the hands of criminals and people are waiting to see what happens."

Brooks and other analysts interviewed by the AP declined to speculate on whether American military forces might attempt a rescue operation. A senior Navy official in Washington said the Obama administration was talking to the shipping company to learn "the who, what, why, where and when" of the hijacking.

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.

U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen said the closest U.S. ship at the time of the hijacking was 345 miles (555 kilometers)away.

"The area, the ship was taken in, is not where the focus of our ships has been," Christensen told The Associated Press by phone from the 5th Fleet's Mideast headquarters in Bahrain. "The area we're patrolling is more than a million miles in size. Our ships cannot be everywhere at every time."

Somali pirates are trained fighters who frequently dress in military fatigues and use speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment. They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades. Far out to sea, their speedboats operate from larger mother ships.

Most hijackings end with million-dollar payouts. Piracy is considered the biggest moneymaker in Somalia, a country that has had no stable government for decades. Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think-tank Chatham House, said pirates took up to $80 million in ransoms last year.

A NATO official said from Brussels that the alliance's five warships were patrolling the Gulf of Aden at the time of attack.

"That's where most of the shipping goes through and we can provide most of the protection in that vital trade route," said the official who asked not to be identified under standing rules.

The official said the taking of the crude-filled Saudi supertanker Sirius Star also happened in open water far off the Somali coastline. The Sirius Star was released in January,

NATO has five warships that patrol the region alongside three frigates from the European Union. The U.S. Navy normally keeps between five to 10 ships on station off the Somali coast. The navies of India, China, Japan, Russia and other nations also cooperate in the international patrols.

NATO sees piracy as a long-term problem and is planning to deploy a permanent flotilla to the region this summer.

On March 29, a NATO supply ship itself came under attack by Somali pirates who appear to have mistaken it for a merchant ship. The crew quickly overcame the attackers, boarded their boat and captured seven.

This is the second time that Somali pirates have seized a ship belonging to the privately held shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. In February 2008, the towing vessel Svitzer Korsakov from the A.P. Moller-Maersk company Svitzer was briefly seized by pirates.

Before this latest hijacking, Somali pirates were holding 14 vessels and about 200 crew members, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Evileyes......thank you for the follow up.....good report...just seen the follow up on CNN.....


Viruscauser, you are 100% correct, this post is about the hijacking of a cargo ship with an all American crew, not who struck John....
Tony

Thanks for the update Evileyes.

Viruscauser is right on. We are getting tired of this crap. Leave the b.s. rhetoric out of threads. Some members are gonna go on vacation... new or old, supporter or not... it don't much matter to me. This is getting ridiculous and stupid.

Thread closed!!