Somali pirates hijack U.S. cargo ship
Issue date: 4/10/09 Section: News
1 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A U.S. destroyer on Thursday reached the waters where Somali pirates held the American captain of a hijacked cargo ship that was later retaken by the crew in an hours-long high seas drama.
The pirates took Capt. Richard Phillips as a hostage as they escaped into a lifeboat Wednesday in the first such attack on American sailors in around 200 years.
Kevin Speers, a spokesman for the ship company Maersk, told AP Radio that the USS Bainbridge had arrived off the Horn of Africa near where the pirates were floating near the Maersk Alabama.
The Bainbridge was among several U.S. ships that had been patrolling in the region when the 17,000-ton U.S.-flagged cargo ship and its 20 crew were captured Wednesday.
Phillips' family was gathered at his Vermont farmhouse, anxiously watching news reports and taking telephone calls from the U.S. State Department to learn if he would be freed.
U.S. military has limited ability to prevent or respond to surge of Somali piracy
WASHINGTON (AP) - The seizure of an American crew and cargo demonstrates the limits of U.S. military power in an international cops-and-robbers chase along a huge, lawless stretch of African coastline.
The outcome for the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama and its crew off the coast of Somalia was still unclear early Thursday. The crew had retaken control of the cargo ship from a band of pirates, but the captain was still held by the attackers in one of the ship's lifeboats.
"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."
President Barack Obama was closely following the pirate-hostage drama, the first of its kind in modern history involving a U.S. crew, said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser at the White House.
"We have watched with alarm the increasing threat of piracy," McDonough said. "The administration has an intense interest in the security of navigation."
The pirates took Capt. Richard Phillips as a hostage as they escaped into a lifeboat Wednesday in the first such attack on American sailors in around 200 years.
Kevin Speers, a spokesman for the ship company Maersk, told AP Radio that the USS Bainbridge had arrived off the Horn of Africa near where the pirates were floating near the Maersk Alabama.
The Bainbridge was among several U.S. ships that had been patrolling in the region when the 17,000-ton U.S.-flagged cargo ship and its 20 crew were captured Wednesday.
Phillips' family was gathered at his Vermont farmhouse, anxiously watching news reports and taking telephone calls from the U.S. State Department to learn if he would be freed.
U.S. military has limited ability to prevent or respond to surge of Somali piracy
WASHINGTON (AP) - The seizure of an American crew and cargo demonstrates the limits of U.S. military power in an international cops-and-robbers chase along a huge, lawless stretch of African coastline.
The outcome for the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama and its crew off the coast of Somalia was still unclear early Thursday. The crew had retaken control of the cargo ship from a band of pirates, but the captain was still held by the attackers in one of the ship's lifeboats.
"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."
President Barack Obama was closely following the pirate-hostage drama, the first of its kind in modern history involving a U.S. crew, said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser at the White House.
"We have watched with alarm the increasing threat of piracy," McDonough said. "The administration has an intense interest in the security of navigation."
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