Somalia Pirates seize US-flagged cargo ship

[Lonestar]

I agree that to stop the pirates a harder fist is needed, the problem is that in a modern world those kinds of things (summary justice etc.) are not really acceptable (at least not by our laws).
I don't know about the other navies, but the Dutch ships get pretty stiff rules of engagement, because to our government, killing innocents would be completely unacceptable.

I've mentioned, several times on this board and alluded to it in these thread, an instance in my '04-'05 deployment where, no Goddamn fooling, we had 2 DDGs, a CG, an LHD, and a FN FFG ready to rescue some folks off a ship and shell the holy fuck out of the Pirate camps along the coast while landing Marines. The government decided to let the shipowners pay the ransom instead of nipping it in the bud then(as in, giving them one hell of a warning as to what happens when ships are hijacked).

Instead, here we are 4 years later with piracy spiraling out of control and very few people are showing the political will to do something about it. It's about political will, not "oh we don't have enough ships".

[FSTargetDrone]

We ought to make a general or stickied Piracy thread.

Because there is yet another one. This time an Italian-flagged, US owned tugboat:

Pirates seize U.S.-owned, Italy-flagged tugboat

Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:44pm BST

By Duncan Miriri

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates seized a U.S.-owned and Italian-flagged tugboat with 16 crew on Saturday in the latest hijacking in the busy Gulf of Aden waterway, a regional maritime group said.

Andrew Mwangura, of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said the crew were believed to be unharmed on the tugboat, which he added was operated from the United Arab Emirates.

He said the tugboat was towing two barges at the time of capture but there were no details on their cargo.

"This incident shows the pirates are becoming more daring and violent," Mwangura told Reuters by phone.

NATO alliance officials on board the Portuguese warship NRB Corte-Real, which is patrolling the Gulf of Aden, said a distress call came from the MV Buccaneer tugboat but communications were lost six minutes later.

They said 10 of the tugboat's crew were Italian citizens.

Somali pirates have stepped up attacks in March after a lull at the start of 2009.

International interest has focussed this week on the plight of an American hostage, Richard Phillips, held by four pirates on a lifeboat flanked by U.S. naval warships in a high seas standoff since Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi and Alison Bevege on the NRB Corte-Real)

This is a really damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you use force against the pirates and hostages (not to mention innocent Somalis) are killed, you get chastised for that. If you do nothing, piracy continues. I wouldn't want to be the one to make that decision.

And about that French Yacht, reading that story, those people were practically asking for trouble. It's one thing for shipping traffic to have to be in the area, but those people sounded like they were way out of their league.

[ray245]

How the hell would a Pirates attack Perth when they have more to lose than more to gain? You seriously expect the Navy to be sleeping when one of their major port is being attacked?

Yeah, and then they have hostages and clear out again...

..No, I admit it was rhetorical hyperbole only, and intended only as rhetorical hyperbole, a point to drive home. They'll never attack Perth, but once again, first-world westerners get the best of it. Random coastal villages in India and Indonesia, though? Yes, that will be happening at this rate, and what can anyone do about it, if we don't attack the pirates directly in their lairs in Somalia with heavy firepower? Notice, I don't expect to permanently suppress piracy doing this just once, either--I think bombardments of the Somali coast will simply become a regular feature of naval life if such a policy is implemented.

Well, given the fact that Singapore is pretty near the straits of Malacca and no pirates would ever think of attacking any major coastal areas in our nation, I would say the chances of pirates attacking villages depends on how secure and how well guarded the coastal regions can be and the size of the naval force the nation can afford.

Even then, there is a stark contrast between piracy in the Straits of Malacca and in Somalia. When the regional navies steps up their patrol, the amount of pirate attacks drop by a sizable margin. Moreover, the very fact that Pirates in my region has yet to do something as ridiculous and stupid as attacking a major port in my region basically means that you don't necessary have to resort to bombing all the coastal region and start a firefight with the pirates in order to deter them. An active presence of naval forces alone can deter the pirates well enough.

Bear in mind that an active naval presence in that region was only heavily increased recently, and the fact that an increased naval presence has worked out pretty well in the straits of Malacca in the past few years. Also, from what I gather from the IMB website, the number of successful hijackings has dropped due to the increased naval presence.

A shipping company and most of its crews members as well as their families do not enjoy the idea of a firefight, which basically means you have to go against a person's wishes for personal safety for the sake of blowing pirates up. Should we respect the wishes of the shipping companies and its crew members to have a higher chance of safety due to the fact that they avoided a firefight and paid a ransom?

Also, you would open a lot of legal issues in regards to attacking the pirate bases in places like Somalia. If you argued that it is OK to infringe on a nation sovereignty in regards to piracy issues, then that basically means any navy would have a right to bomb places in Indonesia as well, without the approval of the Indonesian Government.

Hell, with the additional fact that the bases of operation for the pirates are not military based, but rather as a village community with innocents around, how the hell do you avoid the sticky situation of the death of innocents?


Like I said before, as a relative of a person who works actively in the shipping industry, it is not in my personal interest to see him getting killed due to a fire-fight and the navy and policy makers not respecting his desire for his personal safety.

Also, it is funny that see that as a foreign government, you would care more about the people living in another country than a person from your own country.

[Executor32]

It's hard, though, to infringe on a state's sovereignty when the state is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent. The Transitional Federal Government, Somalia's only officially recognized government, barely controls a third of the country, and that third does not include the Puntland region from which most of the pirate forces are based.

[ray245]

It's hard, though, to infringe on a state's sovereignty when the state is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent. The Transitional Federal Government, Somalia's only officially recognized government, barely controls a third of the country, and that third does not include the Puntland region from which most of the pirate forces are based.

Yet this opens up the tricky issue of should the same argument be made in the case of the straits of Malacca.

[xammer99]

I hope I would be saying this were it me or a loved one in the hands of those jackasses, but the USN really needs to clean out the area with extreme prejudice. The more ransoms paid, the more ships that will be taken, and it will continue endlessly. It is the classic school yard bully cycle and it won't end until someone pops the bully in the nose and makes him stop.

On the surface, there is plenty of reason to feel sympathy for them. Their country has failed repeatedly, their countrymen are starving, they are poor, uneducated, no prospects for the future, etc... And while all true, it misses one point... they aren't Robin Hood. They are out to threaten, murder, and steal to enrich themselves. Can richer nations afford the loss? On this scale? Yes, but the longer this continues, the larger the problem will grow and the higher the costs become. Eventually it will become to expensive to bear and have serious consequences.

Unfortunately we cannot institute a "happy" solution of giving them a stable country that will allow them to prosper on their own, that is a choice they have to make internally. We tried it and it failed. So, that leaves us with only one option, pulling out the mailed fist and teaching them the lesson that this behavior is unacceptable and will be punished... harshly.

To do otherwise, from looking at history, is to invite decades if not century of continuing escalation in the activity until the same harsh action is at last taken.

To quote Jefferson, "Millions for Defense, not one cent for tribute".

Unfortunately we seem to have forgotten that lil lesson.

[ray245]

I hope I would be saying this were it me or a loved one in the hands of those jackasses, but the USN really needs to clean out the area with extreme prejudice. The more ransoms paid, the more ships that will be taken, and it will continue endlessly. It is the classic school yard bully cycle and it won't end until someone pops the bully in the nose and makes him stop.

Unfortunately we cannot institute a "happy" solution of giving them a stable country that will allow them to prosper on their own, that is a choice they have to make internally. We tried it and it failed. So, that leaves us with only one option, pulling out the mailed fist and teaching them the lesson that this behavior is unacceptable and will be punished... harshly.

To do otherwise, from looking at history, is to invite decades if not century of continuing escalation in the activity until the same harsh action is at last taken.

Tell me why sending more naval patrol to that region cannot cause a decrease in Piracy in the region in the long run, and deter the pirates from taking more rash action?

A increase in naval patrol has resulted in a decrease in pirate attacks in the straits of Malacca in the long run, so tell me why can't we simply send more ships to patrol that region, and we have to resulted in military strikes along the coast of Somalia, risking the lives of hostage and innocents alike?

Why is your proposed solution better than increasing naval patrols?

[Lonestar]

I hope I would be saying this were it me or a loved one in the hands of those jackasses, but the USN really needs to clean out the area with extreme prejudice.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I do not know how many times I've mentioned it on this board, but get it through all of you people's head: The USN can clean out the pirates' nest whenever it wants, it is operating under political constraints.

Stop leveling charges about the USN not doing it's job when it's being instructed nto to by the higher ups.

[[R_H]]

How much of a threat are the pirates with their RPGs to large vessels like the Maersk Alabama?

[Burak Gazan]

Just posted:

CTV News: Captain freed from pirates

[xammer99]

Pointless rant

a. No... really? The USN has to obey a civilian authority? Gee Wally! I never would have guessed that! Thanks for that moment of enlightenment.

b. And now a more serious response to the previously asked question about cleaning being preferable to increased patrols.

• While increased patrols and threats are nice for deterring the more intelligent ones, the bold/brutal/dumb ones won't care. They will see increased "showing of the flag" as a sign of weakness and continue the acts of piracy because at worst, they'll get buzzed in a chopper or a few warning shots fired. At which point they head back to port and try again in a few weeks.
  
  Which oh look... they DID! The past two weeks of activity is greater than the previous 3 months because the show the flag sent'em back to port for awhile, then they came roarin back out. Showing the flag solves no problem because you are dealing with people who have that right mix of heavily armed, have nothing to lose, and a WHOLE LOT to gain by success.
• If we do chose to take the long strangle appoach, then more ships will be taken, more ransoms paid, and more people killed. But those millions flowing in will buy better and better weaponry and better ships. That is a lotta money for replacing AK's and RPGs with more substantive weapons to make them harder to dig out. And a lot of money for buying say speed boats with better tenders to increase their operational range from that of glorified lake boats with fishing boat tenders.
  
  Then we have a MUCH larger stretch of sea to cover and a much more capably armed force.

This is the classic, absolutely no win situation because of what the political leadership decided 4 years ago. Now it's a case of how do we loose the least. Do we want to do the slow bleed in money, blood, and prestige? Or do we wanna take one on the PR chin now and nip it at the mid stem since we pissed away the chance to nip it in the bud.

[xammer99]

Just posted:

CTV News: Captain freed from pirates

Two words...

Kick... Ass!

One down... how many more to go?

[FSTargetDrone]

How much of a threat are the pirates with their RPGs to large vessels like the Maersk Alabama?

Probably somewhat dangerous to any vessel carrying flammable materials.

Some unconfirmed reports are saying that the captain jumped off the lifeboat again and this time the US forces were able to take advantage and fire on the pirates.

[Burak Gazan]

Just posted:

CTV News: Captain freed from pirates

Two words...

Kick... Ass!

One down... how many more to go?

Judging from the story update on the link, its actually all of them; 3 killed, 1 wounded and captured. I suspect the work of some rather large men in black wetsuits perhaps

[ray245]

While increased patrols and threats are nice for deterring the more intelligent ones, the bold/brutal/dumb ones won't care. They will see increased "showing of the flag" as a sign of weakness and continue the acts of piracy because at worst, they'll get buzzed in a chopper or a few warning shots fired. At which point they head back to port and try again in a few weeks.

I would say it takes a while for the message that there is no benefit for you to launch attacks when the navy is around to get through for those dumber pirates.

Thinking about it again, I think I can be acceptable to a scenario where the navy fires and sinks the pirates when the Pirates has no hostage on their hand, and is far away from the transport ships.

Which oh look... they DID! The past two weeks of activity is greater than the previous 3 months because the show the flag sent'em back to port for awhile, then they came roarin back out. Showing the flag solves no problem because you are dealing with people who have that right mix of heavily armed, have nothing to lose, and a WHOLE LOT to gain by success.

Yet we must bear in mind that the number of successful repelling against those pirates has increased as well. Also, I do find it weird that an active naval presence would only work well enough for the straits of Malacca but no in waters near Somalia.

This is the classic, absolutely no win situation because of what the political leadership decided 4 years ago. Now it's a case of how do we loose the least. Do we want to do the slow bleed in money, blood, and prestige? Or do we wanna take one on the PR chin now and nip it at the mid stem since we pissed away the chance to nip it in the bud.

Tell me how are you going to deal with political issues such as ignoring a nation sovereignty(yes, Somalia government is basically none-existance) in order to attack the pirate's village? How would you prevent nations from doing the same actions in regards to the straits of Malacca?

I mean the regional government in SEA only increased the amount of naval patrol, yet we never see a scenario whereby the issue of piracy escalate to a level beyond control.

[The Original Nex]

Another article on the rescue

US sea captain freed in swift firefight
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY and LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy And Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writers 40 mins ago

MOMBASA, Kenya – An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday and three of his captors were killed in a daring rescue by U.S. Navy Seals that ended a five-day standoff between the world's most powerful Navy and Somali pirates in a lifeboat far off the Horn of Africa.

Capt. Richard Phillips was in "imminent danger" of being killed before U.S. Special Operations forces shot the pirates in an operation personally approved by President Barack Obama, U.S. officials said.

Phillips' crew, who said they had escaped after he offered himself as a hostage, erupted in cheers aboard their ship docked in Mombasa, Kenya. Some waved an American flag and fired flares in celebration.

Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was not hurt in several minutes of gunfire and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet said he was resting comfortably on a U.S. warship after receiving a medical exam.

"I'm just the byline. The real heroes are the Navy, the Seals, those who have brought me home," Phillips said by phone to Maersk Line Limited President and CEO John Reinhart, the company head told reporters. A photo released by the Navy showed Phillips unharmed and shaking hands with the commanding officer of the USS Bainbridge

Obama said Phillips had courage that was "a model for all Americans" and he was pleased about the rescue, adding that the United States needs help from other countries to deal with the threat of piracy and to hold pirates accountable.

The Navy said Phillips was freed at 7:19 p.m. local time. He was taken aboard the Norfolk, Virginia-based Bainbridge and then flown to the San Diego-based USS Boxer for the medical exam, 5th Fleet spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen said.

Christensen said Phillips was now "resting comfortably." The USS Boxer was in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia, Christensen said.

U.S. officials said a fourth pirate had surrendered and was in military custody. FBI spokesman John Miller said that would change as the situation became "more of a criminal issue than a military issue."

A spokeswoman for the Phillips family, Alison McColl, said Phillips and his wife, Andrea, spoke by phone shortly after he was freed.

"I think you can all imagine their joy and what a happy moment that was for them," McColl said outside of the Phillips home in Underhill. "They're all just so happy and relieved. Andrea wanted me to tell the nation that all of your prayers and good wishes have paid off because Capt. Phillips is safe."

When Phillips' crew heard the news aboard their ship in the port of Mombasa, they placed an American flag over the rail of the top of the Maersk Alabama and whistled and pumped their fists in the air. Crew fired two bright red flares into the sky from the ship.

"We made it!" said crewman ATM Reza, pumping his fist in the air.

"He managed to be in a 120-degree oven for days, it's amazing," said another of about a dozen crew members who came out to talk to reporters. He said the crew found out the captain was released because one of the sailors had been talking to his wife on the phone.

Crew members said their ordeal had begun Wednesday with the Somali pirates hauling themselves up from a small boat bobbing on the surface of the Indian Ocean far below.

As the pirates shot in the air, Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men, crew members said.

Phillips was then held hostage in an enclosed lifeboat that was closely watched by U.S. warships and a helicopter in an increasingly tense standoff. The pirates were believed armed with pistols and AK-47 assault rifles. On Friday, the French navy freed a sailboat seized off Somalia last week by other pirates, but one of the five hostages was killed.

Capt. Joseph Murphy, the father of second-in-command Shane Murphy, thanked Phillips for his bravery.

"Our prayers have been answered on this Easter Sunday," Murphy said. "If not for his incredible personal sacrifice, this kidnapping and act of terror could have turned out much worse."

Murphy said both his family and Phillips' "can now celebrate a joyous Easter together."

"This was an incredible team effort, and I am extremely proud of the tireless efforts of all the men and women who made this rescue possible" Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said in a statement.

He called Phillips and his crew "heroic."

Talks to free Phillips began Thursday with the captain of the USS Bainbridge talking to the pirates under instruction from FBI hostage negotiators on board the U.S. destroyer. The pirates had threatened to kill Phillips if attacked.

A government official and others in Somalia with knowledge of the situation had reported hours earlier that negotiations for Phillips' release had broken down.

Three U.S. warships were within easy reach of the lifeboat on Saturday. The U.S. Navy had assumed the pirates would try to get their hostage to shore, where they could have hidden him on Somalia's lawless soil and been in a stronger position to negotiate a ransom.

"The Somali government wanted the drama to end in a peaceful way, but any one who is involved in this latest case had the choice to use violence or other means," Abdulkhadir Walayo, the prime minister's spokesman, told The Associated Press. "Any way, we see it will be a good lesson for the pirates or any one else involved in this dirty business."

Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old pirate, said that the killing of the three pirates was "a painful experience."

"This is unfortunate action and our friends should have done more to kill the captain before they were killed. This will be a good lesson for us," Habeb told the AP from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl.

Residents of Harardhere, another port and pirate stronghold, were gathering in the streets after news of the captain's release, saying they fear pirates may now retaliate against some of the 200 hostages they still hold.

"We fear more that any revenge taken by the pirates against foreign nationals could bring more attacks from the foreign navies, perhaps on our villages," Abdullahi Haji Jama, who owns a clothes store in Harardhere, told the AP by telephone.

Phillips jumped out of the lifeboat Friday and tried to swim for his freedom but was recaptured when a pirate fired an automatic weapon at or near him, according to U.S. Defense Department officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the unfolding operations.

Early Saturday, the pirates holding Phillips in the lifeboat fired a few shots at a small U.S. Navy vessel that had approached, a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The official said the U.S. sailors did not return fire, the Navy vessel turned away and no one was hurt. He said the vessel had not been attempting a rescue.

The district commissioner of the central Mudug region said talks on freeing Phillips had gone on all day Saturday, with clan elders from his area talking by satellite telephone and through a translator with Americans, but collapsed late Saturday night.

Phillips' crew of 19 American sailors reached safe harbor in Kenya's northeast port of Mombasa about the same time under guard of U.S. Navy Seals, exhilarated by their freedom but mourning the absence of Phillips.

Pirates are holding about a dozen ships with more than 200 crew members, according to the Malaysia-based piracy watchdog International Maritime Bureau. Hostages are from Bulgaria, China, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, Tuvalu and Ukraine, among other countries.

___

Jakes reported from Washington. Associated Press writers who contributed to this report include Mohamed Olad Hassan and Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu, Somalia; Michelle Faul and Tom Maliti in Nairobi, Kenya; Matt Apuzzo in Washington and John Curran in Underhill, Vermont;

[Tanasinn]

To be fair, we already ignore national sovereignty where it's a joke and our interests are concerned. Ask an irked Pakistan. It's not like it would be changing the game that much - the hostages' well-being is a greater concern.

[Sea Skimmer]

To be fair, we already ignore national sovereignty where it's a joke and our interests are concerned. Ask an irked Pakistan. It's not like it would be changing the game that much - the hostages' well-being is a greater concern.

Umm you seem to have missed what happened a couple months ago, when it was revealed by a US congress women that all those Predator air strikes in Pakistan are being conducted with drones based in Pakistan. Meaning Pakistan is consenting to those actions, even if it denied doing so in public to try to bolster its support with its own population (not a bad plan at all really). People even found the base with Predators on the ground on Google Earth, Google quickly deleted the imagery on request of the US government. Now you can just see that the base as several brand new Predator sized hangers.

In the case of Somalia, no sovereignty exists because no government exists, and UN resolutions already authorize foreign warships to pursue pirates at will in Somalia territory. But as you say Sovereignty has nothing to do with this, its just not that no one wants to take the blame if an attack on the pirate bases leads to hostages being killed. The fact that this is simply leading to more and more hostages being taken on a massive scale is simply ignored.

[Tanasinn]

I didn't know that the Predators were being based in Pakistan proper. Thank you for the information on that.

[Sea Skimmer]

I cant find a decent link to an article on it, but here’s the photo, and then what google 'updated' it to be. Amazing that no one found it sooner really, since apparently it was in the archive all from 2006 onward, but the airbase is in a very remote part of south east Pakistan.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tWIATyGp1Eo/S ... Drones.jpg

[MKSheppard]

And we have learned a lesson:

Don't fuck with US Flagged Cargo Ships; or the US Navy.

[Rogue 9]

And we have learned a lesson:

Don't fuck with US Flagged Cargo Ships; or the US Navy.

The pirates seem to have come away with a different lesson. From the last article:

"This is unfortunate action and our friends should have done more to kill the captain before they were killed. This will be a good lesson for us," Habeb told the AP from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl.

Which is not to say that it shouldn't have been done; just don't expect the pirates to be deterred unless this happens a lot more.

[Broomstick]

Rational people - seeing an outcome with the ship retaken by a US crew; all US personnel including hostages alive, well, and free; 75% of the pirates dead and the remainder in US custody - would conclude that there is no profit in pirating US ships and leave them alone.

Of course, there are a lot of irrational people in the world, and no doubt some of them are pirates.

[FSTargetDrone]

Rational people - seeing an outcome with the ship retaken by a US crew; all US personnel including hostages alive, well, and free; 75% of the pirates dead and the remainder in US custody - would conclude that there is no profit in pirating US ships and leave them alone.

Of course, there are a lot of irrational people in the world, and no doubt some of them are pirates.

Sadly, these are probably not rational people.

More about the threats of revenge:

Pirates vow revenge after rescue mission

By Abdiqani Hassan

Reuters

April 13, 2009 07:32am

SOMALI pirates have threatened revenge after two separate hostage-rescue raids by foreign forces killed at least five comrades, raising fears of future bloodshed on the high seas.

The latest raid by US forces this morning saved American hostage Capt Richard Phillips. Three pirates were killed and one was taken captive, the US Navy said.

That rescue mission and one by France last week have upped the stakes in shipping lanes off the anarchic Horn of Africa nation where pirate gangs have defied foreign naval patrols.

"The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now," Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone.

"We cannot know how or whether our friends on the lifeboat died, but this will not stop us from hijacking," he said.

Sea gangs generally treat their captives well, hoping to fetch top dollar in ransoms. The worst violence has been an occasional beating.

"We shall revenge," said another pirate, Aden, in Eyl village, a pirate lair on Somalia's eastern coast.

Some fear the US and French operations may make the modern-day pirates more like those of previous centuries.

"The pirates will know from now that anything can happen. The French are doing this, the Americans are doing it. Things will be more violent from now on," said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program.

"This is a big wake-up to the pirates. It raises the stakes."

Piracy is lucrative business in Somalia, where gangs have earned millions of dollars in ransoms, splashing it on wives, houses, cars and fancy goods.

After a wane in business early this year, pirates have struck back. They presently hold more than a dozen vessels with about 260 hostages, of whom about 100 are Filipino.

Eyl, Haradheere and other pirate havens along the Indian Ocean coastline have come back to life with the windfall of successful operations.

Somalia's anarchy - whose 18 years of civil war have given sea gangs assault rifles, grenade launchers and little central control - has long been ignored by world powers.

The saga over the capture of Capt Phillips has thrown international attention on the long-running piracy phenomenon that has hiked up insurance costs on strategic waterways where warships now patrol.

"Killing three out of thousands of pirates will only escalate piracy," said Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf, spokesman of the moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca.

[Rogue 9]

"Killing three out of thousands of pirates will only escalate piracy," said Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf, spokesman of the moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca.

Then clearly we need to kill more than three of them.