I'm feeling that I must write out my immediate thoughts regarding all the information now being made known about the rescue of the Captain from the Maersk Alabama, as well as the whole pirate movement being currently recognized and publicized. I'm including two different reports (in their entirety); one focused on the event itself and the second focused on how the hijacking ended. If you go to CNN's website, you can look up both of these stories with little searching.
Here is the first story from CNN tonight:
(CNN) -- The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship bound for Mombasa, Kenya, was attacked Tuesday by Somali pirates, according to a NATO source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Pirates attacked The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship, but were unable to board.
"The pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the vessel, which sustained damage," said a statement from New York-based Liberty Maritime Corporation, which owns the vessel.
The ship was carrying U.S. food aid for African nations, the statement said.
The pirates never made it onto the ship and the vessel is now being escorted by a coalition ship, still bound for Mombasa, officials said.
Two senior defense officials said the Liberty Sun was being escorted by the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge. It is the ship carrying Richard Phillips, the captain of the container ship Maersk Alabama, which was hijacked last week. Phillips spent days as a hostage of the pirates before being rescued Sunday.
Katy Urbik of Wheaton, Illinois, said her son, Thomas, was aboard the Liberty Sun at the time of the attack. She shared the e-mails he sent as the ship came under fire.
"We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets," said one e-mail sent Tuesday afternoon. "We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt. [A] rocket penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire, too, but put out.
"Navy is on the way and helos and ships are coming. I'll try to send you another message soon. [G]ot to go now. I love you mom and dad and all my brothers and family."
"My heart stopped after I realized there wasn't going to be a 'just kidding' after his comment," Katy Urbik said.
About 1½ hours later, Thomas Urbik sent another e-mail to his mother, which said, "The navy has showed up in full force and we are now under military escort ... all is well. I love you all and thank you for the prayers."
In an e-mail only hours before the attack, Urbik's son tried to assure his mother that his crew was safe and taking precautions.
"Don't worry too much. I am fine and we are being well monitored by the U.S. Navy, who is demanding we send them a report every six hours on our position and status," Thomas Ubrik's e-mail said. He added, "We in fact are going to be the second American ship to arrive into Mombasa after the Maersk Alabama. It should be interesting to say the least. ... We have had several drills to prepare ourselves to secure ourselves in the engine room. [W]e can do it pretty quick by now."
The company said the ship had dropped off food aid last week at a Sudanese port and the ship was going around the Horn of Africa to reach Kenya when it came under attack. However, the exact location of the attack remained unclear.
Earlier Tuesday, pirates off the coast of Somalia seized two freighters, proving they remain a force to contend with just days after the U.S. Navy dramatically rescued an American captain held by other pirates.
First, pirates in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday hijacked the MV Irene EM, a 35,000-ton Greek-owned bulk carrier, according to a NATO spokesman and the European Union's Maritime Security Center.
The crew of the Greek carrier was thought to be unhurt and ships have been warned to stay clear of the area for fear of further attack, the Security Center said.
Later Tuesday, pirates on four skiffs seized the 5,000-ton MV Sea Horse, a Lebanese-owned and Togo-flagged vessel, said Cmdr. Chris Davies of NATO's Maritime Component Command Headquarters in Northwood, England.
Details about the ship and its crew weren't immediately available.
NATO has an ongoing anti-piracy mission off Somalia called Operation Allied Protector. The mission involves four ships covering more than a million square miles, Davies said.
A U.S.-led international naval task force, Combined Task Force-151, is also patrolling in the region.
Tuesday's hijackings came two days after sharpshooters from the U.S. Navy SEALs killed three pirates who had been holding Phillips hostage on the water for days.
Phillips had offered himself as a hostage when pirates attacked the Alabama on Wednesday, officials said. The ship had been on its way to deliver aid to Mombasa, Kenya.
A fourth pirate had been aboard Bainbridge when the shootings occurred and was taken into custody. Video Watch the tough tactics the Navy uses »
The incident follows four freighters being seized over the past two days by pirates off the Somalian coast, proving they remain a force to contend with.
Pirates on Monday hijacked two Egyptian fishing boats carrying a total of between 18 and 24 people, the Egyptian Information Ministry told CNN.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry is working to end the hijacking, the ministry said.
Egyptian boats are known to use Somali waters illegally for fishing, taking advantage of the lawless state of the country and the lack of enforcement of its maritime boundaries.
Those who have tracked pirate activity in Somalia say it started in the 1980s, when the pirates claimed they were trying to stop the rampant illegal fishing and dumping that continues to this day off the Somali coast.
Piracy accelerated after the fall of the Somali government in the early 1990s and began to flourish after shipping companies started paying ransoms. Those payments started out being in the tens of thousands of dollars and have since climbed into the millions.
Some experts say companies are simply making the problem worse by paying the pirates.
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Here is the second CNN report regarding how the hijacking ended:
(CNN) -- In the end, it was a single moment that brought the hostage crisis to its dramatic finish.
Three gunshots. All three fatal. Fired in the dark by three specially trained U.S. Navy SEALs as the pirates' boat rocked in the water off Somalia.
"Phenomenal shots -- 75 feet away," said Navy Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, who oversees the region.
A senior defense official said each was a shot to the head.
Gortney, in an interview Monday with CNN's "American Morning," described critical steps that led to the rescue of U.S. Capt. Richard Phillips, who was taken by pirates after they boarded his merchant ship, the Maersk Alabama, east of Somalia on Wednesday.
Four pirates had been holding Phillips in a small lifeboat, which had run out of fuel. "One of their pirates had left the lifeboat, needed medical attention and jumped onto one of our inflatable boats," Gortney said.
Gortney told CNN's Barbara Starr that the USS Bainbridge rammed the lifeboat Saturday to keep it from trying to return to the Somalian shore about 20 miles away.
"At one point, actually, the two vessels collided" as the captain of the Bainbridge tried to hold off the lifeboat, Gortney said.
Gortney, in the "American Morning" interview, said one of the pirates needed medical attention and "jumped onto one of our inflatable boats."
The pirate's need for medical help was a credit to the Maersk's crew. When the pirates boarded their vessel, a tussle ensued, during which one of the crewmen stabbed the pirate in the hand. Four days later, the pirate's departure from the lifeboat to accept U.S. medical help -- and try to negotiate the captive's release -- left only three for the U.S. snipers to keep their eyes on.
The three were tired, Gortney said. "The sea state was picking up. They agreed for us to tow them into little better waters as the ship was bouncing around. It was very tense."
The on-scene U.S. commander of the Bainbridge, which had come to try to negotiate the captain's release, could see the three remaining pirates "were very, very intense. One of them held his AK-47 in the back of the captain. We were always concerned about the imminent danger to the captain."
The pirates had repeatedly threatened to kill Phillips, Gortney said.
A Navy SEAL team had parachuted in and taken up positions on the Bainbridge's back deck.
The military had orders from President Obama authorizing lethal force if there was imminent danger.
"At one point, as uncomfortable as the pirates were, they exposed themselves where there was an opportunity," Gortney said.
He gave details of that "exposure" at a news conference Sunday. He said two of the pirates had their heads and shoulders exposed, while the third was visible in the boat's pilot house, through a window.
"The on-scene commander saw that one of the pirates still held that AK-47, was very, very concerned for the captain's life -- and he ordered the shots to be taken," Gortney said Monday.
Even with the small boat "moving up and down a couple of feet," the SEALs hit their targets. "Remarkable marksmanship," Gortney said.
The moment came at 7:19 p.m. (12:19 p.m. ET) Sunday -- after sundown, military officials say.
In the minutes after, a special operations team shimmied along the tow rope to the lifeboat, confirmed that three pirates had been killed and took Phillips back to the Navy ships that had gathered nearby.
The fourth pirate was taken into custody.
"These guys [the SEALs] are very well trained, they have a lot of experience and there has to be a lot of communication between the shooters and the people making the decision that they all three had shots, that they could make their shots successfully," retired U.S. Navy SEAL Dick Couch said on "American Morning."
He added, "Credit that on-scene commander with making a timely decision."
Hijacking and its close "relative", kidnapping, hold certain dark places in my view of humanity. On the one hand, the hijackers were armed with very deadly AK47s and made it abundantly clear that they were going to control the situation with their use of deadly force and even to the point of killing a person to get what they wanted. That they were killed instantly is some kind of "gift" to them, considering what could have happened to them had the crew been able to overpower them and regain control of the ship, let alone what would have happened to them had they been given over to the families of those they or their fellow pirates had slain previously on other hijackings; they would not have died quickly, I would expect. Now, on the other side if this, you have the reality that none of the four hijackers was older than 19, so we're talking about kids-young adults. This whole scenario grieves me all the more. Not just because young lives were ended abruptly, but more so because those three SEALs and their superiors have to cope with taking the lives of these "kids", to which they had no real choice in the matter. As far as I am concerned, these "kids" weren't acting like kids at all, but were acting as they have been taught to act in order to get what they want, from whoever they wanted it from. I expect their *youth* ended quite some time ago, long before getting into a speedboat with an automatic rifle. This will sound harsh, I know, but I'm glad that each of the SEALS hit their marks in their only shot because that meant immediate death versus a possible critical wound that would have possibly have had them bleed out, slowly and very painfully and even more likely, killing the captain before they died themselves. The pirates had created this situation as well as its ending. Their actions became their convictions and their deaths were their own judgement, if that makes sense.
Make absolutely NO mistake; I am immensely proud of of our military and even especially our SEALs and these three SEAL snipers performed a task that no one wants to have to do, yet they train for it every day of every year of their service. The burden on our military is incredible and yet young people are always enlisting to serve, showing that they are willing to step into harms way to protect the rest of us, whether here on the US soil, foreign soil or out at sea.
I don't know if I will keep this post on the blog or not because my emotions are fueling my perspective on the matter, but I knew I needed to, at the least, write them out and see them in front of me. the question, come tomorrow, is whether or not I need my opinions on this to be public or not. I'll post it tonight and then decide tomorrow whether or not it will remain.
Peace at 11:33 PM-
