Pirates foiled in a second attack on Maersk Alabama

[[R_H]]

CNN

(CNN) -- A U.S.-flagged ship that played a central role in a bloody hijacking drama last spring was attacked again Wednesday, a busy day for piracy in the dangerous waters off the east coast of Africa.

It was the first time a security team aboard a major merchant ship repelled a pirate attack, a top U.S. Navy officer said.

But a defensive weapon that emits a loud noise did not work, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said in a briefing.

"They tried to employ [a long-range acoustical device] and it did not have the effect," said Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, which is responsible for the area favored by pirates. He said he did not know why the device did not work.

The Maersk Alabama came under automatic weapons fire from pirates about 350 nautical miles east of the Somali coast, the European Union's anti-piracy force said, but fought the attackers off.

The failed attack came on a day of dramatic piracy events: The captain of a ship hijacked Monday was confirmed to have died, even as his ship was used to attack another, and a Spanish prosecutor demanded an investigation into reports that a ransom had been paid for a ship released Tuesday.

The failed attack Wednesday targeted the same ship that was hijacked in the Indian Ocean in April.

Its captain, Richard Phillips, was held hostage on a lifeboat for five days before U.S. Navy snipers shot three pirates dead. A fourth pirate was arrested, and Phillips was rescued.

This time, private security guards on the Danish-owned ship fended off the pirates, EU and U.S. naval sources said. Security had been beefed up on the vessel since the attack in April, Maersk spokesman Kevin Speers told CNN.

The ship's owners did not immediately respond to a CNN question about whether Phillips is still captain of the ship.

Somali pirates vowed revenge for the killing of their compatriots by the U.S. Navy in April, but it was not immediately clear if the Maersk Alabama was targeted intentionally or if the latest attack was a coincidence.

No casualties were reported on the ship, but pirates on land in Somalia feared the pirates who attacked the Maersk Alabama may have been killed or wounded, or may have drowned, they told a local journalist.

There has been no contact with them since they attacked the Maersk Alabama, a pirate in the central Somali town of Harardhere said. Their last communication came while they were battling the security guards on the cargo ship, the pirate said.

Pirates on land also exchanged gunfire -- with one another.

They fought among themselves Wednesday over a multimillion-dollar ransom they received for releasing a Spanish fishing boat, said a local journalist in contact with the pirates.

"There was a heavy exchange of gunfire between some of our friends" one pirate told the journalist, speaking of the other pirates. "They fought over the 3 million euro ($4.5 million) received as a ransom from the Spanish boat."

At least two pirates were wounded in the gunfight in Harardhere, a pirate stronghold in central Somalia, the local journalist told CNN. Those two pirates are in critical condition and have been transferred to the town of Galka'yo.

The Alakrana, the Spanish fishing vessel, was freed Tuesday along with its 36 crew members, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said. It had been held for 47 days.

Zapatero did not say how the ship was freed. Spanish media -- including CNN sister station CNN+, which cited a source it said was close to the negotiations -- reported that a ransom had been paid.

A top prosecutor in Madrid on Wednesday called for an investigation into the reported ransom.

National Court prosecutor Jesus Alonso sent a written request for the ransom investigation to Judge Santiago Pedraz, asking that the financial web involved in the alleged payment be untangled, including commissions paid to intermediaries in the negotiations, CNN+ reported from the courthouse.

The prosecutor also called on the judge to take testimony from all the ship's 36 crew members.

Various government ministers have sidestepped questions about whether a ransom was paid, but Spanish media reported the payment to the pirates totaled $3.5 million to $4 million.

A leading Spanish fishing industry executive, Juan Manuel Vieites, told CNN on Wednesday that he was certain a ransom was paid for the release of the Spanish tuna trawler.

But Vieites, who heads Euroatun -- a pan-European tuna fishing industry group -- and a Spanish tuna canning association, said he wasn't sure about the amount of the ransom. He declined to provide details.

A day after the hijacking, Spanish military monitoring the situation captured two pirate suspects as they left the fishing boat and later brought them to Madrid. The two were indicted Monday on 36 counts of kidnapping and armed robbery.

They could face sentences of more than 200 years in prison each because of the multiple kidnapping counts.

Separately, the captain of a chemical tanker seized earlier this week died of a wound inflicted during the hijacking, a pirate said.

The ship, the MV Theresa VIII, was used to attack another ship off the Somali coast, the pirate said, but did not provide any other details.

The Virgin Islands-flagged vessel, with a crew of 28 North Koreans and operated from Singapore, was seized in the Indian Ocean on Monday, according to the EU naval force.

It was heading for Mombasa, Kenya, but was hijacked in the south Somali Basin, about 180 miles northwest of the Seychelles, the EU statement said.

Pirates have captured more than 50 ships this year off Somalia.

[[R_H]]

Another article.

Yahoo News

NAIROBI, Kenya – Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months and were thwarted by private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship who fired off guns and a high-decibel noise device.

A U.S. surveillance plane was monitoring the ship as it continued to its destination on the Kenyan coast, while a pirate said that the captain of a ship hijacked Monday with 28 North Korean crew members on board had died of wounds.

Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama last April and took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates in a daring nighttime attack.

Four suspected pirates in a skiff attacked the ship again on Wednesday around 6:30 a.m. local time, firing on the ship with automatic weapons from about 300 yards (meters) away, a statement from the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said.

An on-board security team repelled the attack by using evasive maneuvers, small-arms fire and a Long Range Acoustic Device, which can beam earsplitting alarm tones, the fleet said.

Vice Adm. Bill Gortney of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said the Maersk Alabama had followed the maritime industry's "best practices" in having a security team on board.

"This is a great example of how merchant mariners can take proactive action to prevent being attacked and why we recommend that ships follow industry best practices if they're in high-risk areas," Gortney said in a statement.

However, Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said the international maritime community was still "solidly against" armed guards aboard vessels at sea, but that American ships have taken a different line than the rest of the international community.

"Shipping companies are still pretty much overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of armed guards," Middleton said. "Lots of private security companies employee people who don't have maritime experience. Also, there's the idea that it's the responsibility of states and navies to provide security. I would think it's a step backward if we start privatizing security of the shipping trade."

A Massachusetts Maritime Academy professor, who is also the father of a sailor who was on the Maersk Alabama during the first pirate attack in April, said about 20 percent of the ships off East Africa are armed.

The owners of the Maersk Alabama have spent a considerable amount of money since the April hijacking to make the vessel pirate-proof, Murphy said, including structural features and safety equipment. The most dramatic change is what he called a security force of "highly trained ex-military personnel."

"Somali pirates understand one thing and only one thing, and that's force," said Capt. Joseph Murphy, who teaches maritime security at the school. "They analyze risk very carefully, and when the risk is too high they are going to step back. They are not going to jeopardize themselves."

The wife of the Maersk Alabama's captain, Paul Rochford, told WBZ-AM radio in Boston that she was "really happy" there were weapons on board for this attack.

"It probably surprised the pirates. They were probably shocked," Kimberly Rochford. "I'm really happy at least it didn't turn out like the last time."

A self-proclaimed pirate told The Associated Press from the Somali pirate town of Haradhere that colleagues out at sea had called around 9 a.m. — 2 1/2 hours after the attack.

"They told us that they got in trouble with an American ship, then we lost them. We have been trying to locate them since," said a self-described pirate who gave his name as Abdi Nor.

A U.S. Navy P-3 surveillance aircraft "is monitoring Maersk Alabama and has good voice communication with the vessel," said Lt. Nathan Christensen, the Bahrain-based spokesman for the 5th Fleet. The ship was heading for the Kenyan port town of Mombasa.

"The crew and the captain are safe," Amanda Derick, a spokeswoman for Maersk Line Limited in Norfolk, Va., said on Wednesday. "The appropriate security measures were taken. That's the main thing, everyone's safe."

Maritime experts said it was unlucky but not unprecedented that the Maersk Alabama had been targeted in a second attack.

"It's not the first vessel to have been attacked twice, and it's a chance that every single ship takes as it passes through the area," Cmdr. John Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Naval Force. "At least this time they had a vessel protection detachment on board who were able to repel the attack."

Phillips' ordeal last spring galvanized the attention of the U.S. public to the dangers of operating merchant ships in the Horn of Africa, one of the busiest and most precarious sea lanes in the world.

Underscoring the danger, a self-proclaimed pirate said Wednesday that the captain of a ship hijacked Monday had died of wounds suffered during the ship's hijacking. The pirate, Sa'id, who gave only one name for fear of reprisals, said the captain died Tuesday night from internal bleeding.

The EU Naval Force has said the Virgin Islands-owned chemical tanker the Theresa was taken Monday with 28 North Korean crew.

Pirates have greatly increased their attacks in recent weeks after seasonal rains subsided. On Tuesday, a self-proclaimed pirate said that Somali hijackers had been paid $3.3 million for the release of 36 crew members from a Spanish vessel held for more than six weeks — a clear demonstration of how lucrative the trade can be for impoverished Somalis.

Phillips told the AP last month from his farmhouse in Vermont that he was contemplating retiring from sea life after his ordeal. He's been given a book deal and a movie could be in the works.

Phillips was hailed as a hero for helping his crew thwart April's hijacking before he was taken hostage, but he says he never volunteered, as crew members and his family reported at the time. He says he was already a hostage when he struck a deal with the pirates — trading him for their leader, who was taken by the Maersk Alabama's crew.

[Chris OFarrell]

All the Ransoms they are paying, all the costs in ships being hijacked, shipments being delayed, hostages held...

Is someone actually going to DO something about this situation at any point, besides sailing warships around in circles under rather dubious ROE trying to protect hundreds of ships at a time?

[Edward Yee]

It's cheaper presumably in both money/resources and political capital than, say, killing the shit out of the port areas and their inhabitants, and holding them (and other areas) to prevent a rebuilding.

[Sea Skimmer]

All the Ransoms they are paying, all the costs in ships being hijacked, shipments being delayed, hostages held...

Is someone actually going to DO something about this situation at any point, besides sailing warships around in circles under rather dubious ROE trying to protect hundreds of ships at a time?

Umm, no. I don’t see the situation changing ever. Not as long as people insist that pirates be tried on a court of law held to the highest standards, meaning that everyone who ever gets captured is just let off scot free. Also it’d help if we just made it illegal to pay the ransoms as its funding terrorism. The pirates at this point hold so many ships at once that its not even very practical to think about attacking them with commandoes because of how many operations would have to go forward at the same time. And no one will attack the pirates on land because the retarded excuse for a media the west has would start bitching that GASP CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN SOMALIA!!!!!! Never mind the shipping companies which have openly opposed military action on several occasions because they don’t want to risk a ship being damaged. It’s literally just cheaper to pay ransoms then risk insurance premiums going up.

[Oskuro]

If I may go all internet tough guy for a moment? Wouldn't it be nice to launch long range guided missiles at pirate ships, and send the message that any attacking vessels might spontaneusly expolde?

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, I have to ask, what's the deal with the ransom paying? I don't like caving to the demands of the pirates, but saving lives is a priority. Why does the article make such a fuss about a ransom being payed to free a ship? Would it have been preferrable to have the crew killed?

[Sea Skimmer]

If I may go all internet tough guy for a moment? Wouldn't it be nice to launch long range guided missiles at pirate ships, and send the message that any attacking vessels might spontaneusly expolde?

Anti ship missiles would have trouble hitting the very small boats pirates use. 5in shells would work fine and cost less. The problem lies in target identification, and since we won’t attack the pirates on land even though we know the locations in detail and wont board captured ships, we are left with only narrow windows to attack in the gap in-between when pirates start attacking a ship and when they have captured it. That could be just a few minutes or even less if the crew is surprised, so even a hypersonic anti pirate patrol plane would be hard pressed to respond in time. Warships can only be effective through convoying, and we don’t have enough warships to do that for everyone passing the horn of Africa. Even in the world wars most shipping was never in convoys.

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, I have to ask, what's the deal with the ransom paying? I don't like caving to the demands of the pirates, but saving lives is a priority. Why does the article make such a fuss about a ransom being payed to free a ship? Would it have been preferrable to have the crew killed?

If you pay the ransom, then the problem just keeps getting worse, and it has been. Pirates now launch attacks as far as 1000 miles from the coastline while a few years ago 200 miles was the maximum. They use that money to buy more weapons, boats and recruit more manpower. So is the risk of having crewmen possible killed in military action preferable to the CERTAIN FACT that pirates with otherwise take not dozens but hundreds and basically at this point we are talking close to thousands of people and dozens of ships hostage? Right now the opinion is that yes, we’d rather have the latter, but this cannot go on forever. The pirates do kill people BTW taking ships, and a number of hostages have died enjoying life in Somali.

It’s not without reason that most nations have traditionally had a policy of no negotiations with terrorists. It just perpetuates the problem, and in this case it’s not like anything else will stop the Somalia pirates as the nation has no government that matters and absolutely no signs whatsoever that this will change. In fact the pirates are the closest thing to a government the towns and villages they operate from have.

[Geoff-H]

Back a few hundred years ago, and even later than that it wasn't uncommon for merchant vessels to be armed. Now, I'm no military or financial expert, but would it not be a whole lot less expensive to hire a security team and perhaps buy a machine gun or two for a vessel than to pay millions for a hostage exchange?

I hate to pull the old, "If we don't learn from the past we are doomed to repeat it in the future." thing, but it seems rather relavent to me. Then again, piracy wasn't a "big deal" for a long time, so practices of old were forgot...

[Lord of the Abyss]

Back a few hundred years ago, and even later than that it wasn't uncommon for merchant vessels to be armed. Now, I'm no military or financial expert, but would it not be a whole lot less expensive to hire a security team and perhaps buy a machine gun or two for a vessel than to pay millions for a hostage exchange?

As I understand it, the problem is you need to hire a fair number of mercenaries ( people willing to fight guys who have automatic weapons and RPGs ) who will demand a fairly good wage for themselves, and put them on most or all your ships for every voyage in the region. It adds up. And then there's the likelihood that many ports may not want to allow armed merchant ships to dock.

[Sea Skimmer]

Back a few hundred years ago, and even later than that it wasn't uncommon for merchant vessels to be armed. Now, I'm no military or financial expert, but would it not be a whole lot less expensive to hire a security team and perhaps buy a machine gun or two for a vessel than to pay millions for a hostage exchange?

I hate to pull the old, "If we don't learn from the past we are doomed to repeat it in the future." thing, but it seems rather relavent to me. Then again, piracy wasn't a "big deal" for a long time, so practices of old were forgot...

Armed merchant ships are banned from entering most ports in the world, never mind the countries which completely ban civilians from possessing firearms let alone visiting foreigners. The only realistic option is to have security teams which are taken on board the ship as it passes the horn of Africa, and are then lifted back off after it passes. Blackwater and a couple other companies currently offer services like that but the costs are quite high. Odds are the guards on Maersk Alabama were operating under that kind of contract.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If you're sailing in an armed yacht you can visit most ports in the world but at many you will have to turn over your weapons when met by customs patrol before entering harbour, and then file paperwork and so on to have them returned at which point you must already be cast off and must immediately leave the territorial waters of the country in question.

[Sarevok]

Would it be possible to change maritime law regulating armed merchant ships in light of growing piracy in certain region ?

[Sea Skimmer]

If you're sailing in an armed yacht you can visit most ports in the world but at many you will have to turn over your weapons when met by customs patrol before entering harbour, and then file paperwork and so on to have them returned at which point you must already be cast off and must immediately leave the territorial waters of the country in question.

A lot of places have exceptions to allow a few small arms on the grounds that you need them to fend off sharks, but arming a merchant ship with machine guns, I don’t see that being legal much of anywhere. I don’t think it even would be in the US, and we allow about two orders of magnitude more civilian firepower then most places. Though it did just occur to me that black powder weapons tend to be very loosely regulated, so many we could armed the merchant ships with a battery of 18pdrs firing grapeshot on modern stabilized mounts.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Back a few hundred years ago, and even later than that it wasn't uncommon for merchant vessels to be armed. Now, I'm no military or financial expert, but would it not be a whole lot less expensive to hire a security team and perhaps buy a machine gun or two for a vessel than to pay millions for a hostage exchange?

As I understand it, the problem is you need to hire a fair number of mercenaries ( people willing to fight guys who have automatic weapons and RPGs ) who will demand a fairly good wage for themselves, and put them on most or all your ships for every voyage in the region. It adds up. And then there's the likelihood that many ports may not want to allow armed merchant ships to dock.

As has been said, they simply do not allow armed merchantmen to dock, period. And yes, you're paying a bunch of mercenaries (like Blackwater) to sit on your ship. They're not really useful for much of anything apart from providing firepower to fend off an unlikely pirate attack that the ship wasn't able to outrun (many pirate attacks end with the merchantman outrunning the pirates. A merchant vessel isn't fast, but it's designed for the open ocean, so it can keep up its modest rate of speed indefinitely, compared to the small craft pirates use.) Not to mention getting into gunfights does carry the risk of collateral damage on a ship which will carry many more millions of dollars worth of cargo in its service lifetime than the cost of the occasional ransom and paying out the death benefits for the occasional crew member killed in the rare pirate attack.

[Steel]

Back a few hundred years ago, and even later than that it wasn't uncommon for merchant vessels to be armed. Now, I'm no military or financial expert, but would it not be a whole lot less expensive to hire a security team and perhaps buy a machine gun or two for a vessel than to pay millions for a hostage exchange?

As I understand it, the problem is you need to hire a fair number of mercenaries ( people willing to fight guys who have automatic weapons and RPGs ) who will demand a fairly good wage for themselves, and put them on most or all your ships for every voyage in the region. It adds up. And then there's the likelihood that many ports may not want to allow armed merchant ships to dock.

As has been said, they simply do not allow armed merchantmen to dock, period. And yes, you're paying a bunch of mercenaries (like Blackwater) to sit on your ship. They're not really useful for much of anything apart from providing firepower to fend off an unlikely pirate attack that the ship wasn't able to outrun (many pirate attacks end with the merchantman outrunning the pirates. A merchant vessel isn't fast, but it's designed for the open ocean, so it can keep up its modest rate of speed indefinitely, compared to the small craft pirates use.) Not to mention getting into gunfights does carry the risk of collateral damage on a ship which will carry many more millions of dollars worth of cargo in its service lifetime than the cost of the occasional ransom and paying out the death benefits for the occasional crew member killed in the rare pirate attack.

This is very relevant, as I believe that in many situations the pirates don't actually take a ship by boarding it, but first force a ship to surrender by pointing rpgs at it. If the pirates are able to inflict crippling damage on you without boarding then your private security people aren't much use. Especially if they manage to sneak up and you opening up on them results in having them blow holes in the hull.

[Chris OFarrell]

All the Ransoms they are paying, all the costs in ships being hijacked, shipments being delayed, hostages held...

Is someone actually going to DO something about this situation at any point, besides sailing warships around in circles under rather dubious ROE trying to protect hundreds of ships at a time?

Umm, no. I don’t see the situation changing ever. Not as long as people insist that pirates be tried on a court of law held to the highest standards, meaning that everyone who ever gets captured is just let off scot free. Also it’d help if we just made it illegal to pay the ransoms as its funding terrorism. The pirates at this point hold so many ships at once that its not even very practical to think about attacking them with commandoes because of how many operations would have to go forward at the same time. And no one will attack the pirates on land because the retarded excuse for a media the west has would start bitching that GASP CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN SOMALIA!!!!!! Never mind the shipping companies which have openly opposed military action on several occasions because they don’t want to risk a ship being damaged. It’s literally just cheaper to pay ransoms then risk insurance premiums going up.

That is sort of what I meant

Make it illegal to pay ransoms to the pirates under the frigen anti-terror laws, they have to be good for SOMETHING, just clasifiy them all as terrorists and if a shipping company pays up, arrest all the board members involved for aiding and abetting terrorism. Plan and launch a systematic commando operation to go off simultaneously against all known ships being held by the pirates to rescue as many of the hostages as you can. You won't get them all, but you'll get most of them, and that's fewer variables in the equation. Rewrite the ROE so if a clear act of piracy is being committed, lethal force is authorized -and encouraged- against the pirates, and any country that whines about it, publicly ridicule them for it. Have NATO and allied countries make a pool of marines or other light infintry who, in international waters, are put on ships transiting the area to provide security, with heavy weapons suited to blowing their little skiffs out of the water, make the take on and take off points somewhat random, but outside the zone of attacks. It doesn't even HAVE to be on every ship, work with the shipping companies to work up convoys for some groups, infantry for others, private security for yet others, and you should be able to make most ships untouchable.

And of course, draw up a systematic plan to frigen go Royal Navy on those pirate ports, burning them out in a hurricane of horror, or at least a few of the worst places as an object lesson, and drop leaflets all over the other ports politely telling them that enough is enough.

This problem has become insane, the amount of money being flushed for no result by sailing dozens of warships back and forth to just 'scare off' the pirates when they appear, to say nothing of the ransom money (which just makes the problem grow steadily worse) and cargo ships being taken out of commission and their cargo being delayed...

[Edward Yee]

Plan and launch a systematic commando operation to go off simultaneously against all known ships being held by the pirates to rescue as many of the hostages as you can. You won't get them all, but you'll get most of them, and that's fewer variables in the equation.

Sea Skimmer said it -- "not even very practical," due to "how many operations would have to go forward at the same time"... and how many special operations forces, police and military, can even be dispatched for this? One German GSG-9 mission already scrubbed after the USG withdrew support and presumably the German government wasn't capable of sustaining that operation further, though I've heard that there were tensions between GSG-9 and KSK (its military counterpart) over what happened.

And no one will attack the pirates on land because the retarded excuse for a media the west has would start bitching that GASP CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN SOMALIA!!!!!!

It won't be this one so much as the cost of holding the ports... I don't think clearing would be enough if it has to keep happening.

[Chris OFarrell]

Plan and launch a systematic commando operation to go off simultaneously against all known ships being held by the pirates to rescue as many of the hostages as you can. You won't get them all, but you'll get most of them, and that's fewer variables in the equation.

Sea Skimmer said it -- "not even very practical," due to "how many operations would have to go forward at the same time"... and how many special operations forces, police and military, can even be dispatched for this? One German GSG-9 mission already scrubbed after the USG withdrew support and presumably the German government wasn't capable of sustaining that operation further, though I've heard that there were tensions between GSG-9 and KSK (its military counterpart) over what happened.

Frankly, I think the problems are being overstated.

I mean its a *complex* opp, no question about it, but I hardly think its impossible, I mean its not like we're planning Operation Overlord and the opposition is not the 3rd Reich with the Atlantic Wall manned and ready! From what I've heard, most of the hostages are being held on a limited number of ships anchored off certian pirate staging areas, there are a finite number of targets to hit, something around 20-30? I know a lot of special forces teams are tied up in places like Afghanistan, but there is still plenty of capacity around to hit that number of targets at the same time, especially when you bring in all the interested parties, which is just about every country in the world now.

I mean that IS why we HAVE planning staff and operations planners in the military after all.

Sure there is a risk things might go wrong in an operation, the more complex it gets, but its a risk you simply have to take if you want to draw a line with this problem.