Somali Pirate's Jolly Adventure To New York

The United States captured a Somali pirate during the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama. The pirate, Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, was escorted back to the US to stand trial. He's now in New York standing trial on multiple charges stemming from his actions to attack the Maersk Alabama and taking the captain and crew hostage.

He was front-cuffed and chained to the agents. At first, he was stern-faced, before flashing a smile for the photographers.

His blue, rainproof jumpsuit hung baggy on his thin frame -- all in one piece, including the footies, like a child's pajamas.

He didn't answer questions.

Wal-i-Musi is expected to face a federal magistrate in Manhattan by this afternoon, according to official sources.

There, he will likely learn he faces kidnapping and other charges carrying a maximum of life in prison, the sources said.

He has a lawyer with the help of the Minneapolis-based Somali Justice Advocacy Center, its director, Omar Jamal, said today.

Jamal says Muse, whose parents say is 16, does not speak English and is confused at his circumstances.

Wal-i-Musi was the hapless pirate in the lot -- jumped, stabbed and tied up by his would-be captives in the early moments of the attack.

He's confused at his circumstances? I'd say that he got off lucky. He's lucky he wasn't killed along with the other three pirates holding Capt. Phillips because he sought medical attention for wounds on his hand courtesy of the USS Bainbridge. He's lucky that the US has a justice system far more compassionate than the Somali pirates, who repeatedly attack shipping with the intent to collect ransoms.

What exactly is Musi confused about? He was involved in piracy. Is the Somali Justice Advocacy Center claiming that Musi didn't know that he was engaging in piracy and violating international law? Ignorance of the law is no defense. It's basic common sense that you don't go and attack ships, threaten crews with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades and other weapons, and kidnap crews to hold them ransom. Yet, Musi was in with this particular crowd. It's what they do.

UPDATE:
Apparently Musi isn't 16, but 18. The parents spoke with the judge by phone and said as much. Musi will be treated as an adult. So much for the claim that he was a juvenile.

Brazen Pirates Strike Again

The Somali pirates continue hijacking ships, despite the American operation to free Capt. Phillips that resulted in three shots and three dead pirates. Today, they captured three more boats off the coast of Somalia, including a Greek-managed bulk carrier and two Egyptian fishing boats.

The latest trophy for the pirates was the M.V. Irene E.M., a Greek-managed bulk carrier sailing from the Middle East to South Asia, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.

The Irene was attacked and seized in the middle of the night Tuesday — a rare tactic for the pirates.

U.S. Navy Lt. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said the Irene was flagged in the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and carried 23 Filipino crew. Choong reported a crew of 21, and there was no immediate way to reconcile the figures.

Apparently the pirates haven't gotten the message that their days are numbered. They continue plundering shipping that comes near the coast.

The message the rest of the world is sending is that they're not going to free all of the hostages held by the pirates, but only those whose navies are in a position to take action (the US and French for example, although the Indian Navy has also engaged and destroyed pirate shipping).

A map indicates where the pirates have struck during 2008, and 2009 looks like it's going to be a banner year despite changes in the shipping lanes away from the Somali coast. It's also not much of a surprise where the pirates call home.

Arming the crews may not be the panacea that everyone thinks since it only addresses a symptom, not the cause. Eliminating the pirates' port of calls will. Eliminate the pirates means of getting into the shipping lanes will (destroying the pirate boats). Sending out notices to all shipping in the region that any craft entering the shipping lanes that is unmarked and unregistered will be searched, seized, or destroyed depending on the actions of the pirates.

UPDATE:
Jules Crittenden has much more on the handling of the volatile situation off Somalia and the need for follow through.

UPDATE:
Make that four ships seized in 24 hours. A fourth ship was seized by pirates today, this one under the flag of Togo. Why would anyone expect the piracy to end after the US and French operations? The pirates know that unless the US or French go after all the pirates, they'll continue operating and attacking shipping under non-US or French flagged vessels.

Also, spare me the drama over how the pirates who captured Capt. Phillips were all teenagers. Outside of the West, many parts of the world routinely turn children into soldiers. Pirates are no different.

They answer to tribal leaders and militia leaders who are older and know that they can sacrifice the teens while not having to absorb any of the risk themselves. It's yet another reason to go after the pirate safe havens - to take out the tribal leaders and militia leaders spurring others to engage in the piracy to support their own situation.

UPDATE:
Hot Air also notes the capture of the four ships and 60 crew members and that it will take more than words to bring the situation to an end.

Flopping Aces notes that actions speak louder than words.

Blackfive concurs on the need to take action against the safe havens onshore.

The Piracy Conundrum Continues: UPDATE: Capt. Phillips Freed

Pirates continue holding Capt. Richard Phillips on board that drifting lifeboat, and while that is a dangerous enough situation, the complicating factor is that there are more than 200 other crew members who are being held by pirates up and down the Somali coast from the numerous other hijackers in the past few months.

US Navy ships and helicopters are shadowing the lifeboat.

There is some concern that a rescue operation against the pirates holding Phillips might endanger the others. It could conceivably increase the ransoms demanded for the others.

Then again, no such action was discerned following the French efforts to release five hostages in a military operation that resulted in four being rescued and a fifth person killed along with two of the pirates. The French engaged in military ops to secure the release of their citizens shows that military ops can work and the repercussions may not be as bad as feared.

Of course, there's a solution for that too, and that involves going and rescuing all of the people being held hostage by the pirates on shore. It's the kind of action that would put the piracy to an end (big on risk, but huge on reward), and it's not something one would expect from Obama, who's been busy doing everything imaginable to emasculate the US and the US national security posture in the name of being more "friendly" to our enemies.

Such an operation could involve multiple navies and US Marines and Special Forces to infiltrate and identify all the locations where the crews are being held. LCACs and helicopters could be used to ferry in both the Marines and to evacuate the crews. Such equipment is available on the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, which is in the vicinity.

Instead, the Administration is treating this like a police standoff and demanded the arrest of the pirates involved. Somali tribal elders refused, and talks broke off.

Negotiations over the American captain taken hostage by Somali pirates broke down on Saturday, according to Somali officials, after American officials insisted that the pirates be arrested and a group of elders representing the pirates refused.

Somali officials said the American captain, Richard Phillips, and the four heavily armed pirates holding him hostage remained in a covered lifeboat floating in the Indian Ocean about 30 miles off Gara’ad, a notorious pirate den in northeastern Somalia.

The negotiations broke down hours after the pirates fired on a small United States Navy vessel that had tried to approach the lifeboat not long after sunrise Saturday in the Indian Ocean.

It was the first such approach since the standoff began on Wednesday, and the vessel returned to a nearby Navy destroyer, the Bainbridge, after the pirates fired warning shots in the air, according to an American military official.

The American boat did not return fire and “did not want to escalate the situation,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

There's a further reason that the US Navy didn't return fire, and it has more to do with identifying targets and hoping to avoid hitting Capt. Phillips, than with escalating the situation further.

This further indicates the problems with trying to address the situation as a law enforcement matter and not a military one.

It also highlights the fact that the crews themselves have to take matters into their own hands - the crew of the Maersk Alabama freed themselves. They weren't going to wait for someone to come and help them. It was quick thinking and swift action that resulted in their freedom.

Some of the crew managed to hide in a secure part of the Alabama as the pirates stormed the ship, the sailor said.

As the men described the clash, a crew member pointed to his shipmate and said, "This guy is a hero, he and the chief engineer they took down the pirate... he led him down there to the engine room and then they jumped him."

The fellow shipmate then added that he stabbed the pirate in the man and tied him up.

Another crew member shouted, "Captain Phillips is a hero."

UPDATE:
There are those who think that the rest of the world is to blame for the pirates taking up their lucrative endeavors as a result of various entities encroaching on their fishing grounds and dumping in their waters.

UPDATE:
Great news. Captain Phillips was freed after a firefight between US forces and the pirates.

An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a swift firefight that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, U.S. officials said.

Capt. Richard Phillips' crew, who said they escaped after he offered himself to the pirates as a hostage, erupted in cheers abroad their ship docked in Mombasa, Kenya, waving an American flag and firing a flare in celebration.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet said Phillips was resting comfortably on a U.S. warship after receiving a medical exam.

The Navy said Phillips was freed at 7:19 p.m. local time. He was taken aboard the Norfolk, Virginia-based USS Bainbridge and then flown to the San Diego-based USS Boxer for the medial 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.

The U.S. did not say if Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was receiving medical care because he had been injured or if he was being treated for exposure after his ordeal.

U.S. officials said a pirate who had been involved in negotiations to free Phillips but who was not on the lifeboat during the rescue 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."

It's indeed a Happy Easter for the Phillips family. And for the second time, it was because Capt. Phillips attempted to escape that he was able to be freed by the US forces. He again jumped out of the lifeboat, and this time US forces were ready to take out the pirates. Three were killed, and the fourth was taken into custody.

UPDATE:
Even with the rescue, you've got reports trying to make the pirates out to be something that they're not. It's the attempt to claim and transform these modern day pirates into emerging businessmen with unique economic opportunities for advancement:

We are tired of your calls. We have no time for journalists," is a polite translation of some of the last quotes our team managed to extract from the pirates.

"If you bother us again, we will order someone in Mogadishu to meet you," a gang member added before the line went dead.

Often, though, the pirates are friendly and helpful, though they detest use of the p-word. "We never kill people. We are Muslims. We are marines, coastguards -- not pirates," one said.

Hostages say the pirates are normally as friendly as they can be under the circumstances. While they threaten to shoot or beat them if they do not cooperate, they also roast goat for their captives and pass phones around for calls home.

If they're Muslim, they have a funny way of showing it given that they're not showing the hospitality they claim to represent.

UPDATE:
Others blogging: Wizbang, Michelle Malkin, Tigerhawk, Tel Chai Nation, Outside the Beltway, Blackfive, AJ Strata, and Gateway Pundit.

UPDATE:
Well, give President Obama credit here. He authorized the use of force to take out the pirates.

A senior administration official said the president's order authorized force for a group of military assets that arrived at the scene late last week. When more resources arrived, Obama added them to a roster of military personnel allowed to engage militarily with the Somali pirates.

Obama was told Sunday of the rescue while he was in the White House residence, administration officials said. He phoned Phillips and Phillips' family, an official told FOX News.

"I am very pleased that Capt. Phillips has been rescued and is safely on board the USS Boxer," the president said in a statement. "His safety has been our principal concern, and I know this is a welcome relief to his family and his crew."

Obama also praised the U.S. military and the other departments and agencies for their efforts.

"We remain resolved to halt the rise of piracy in this region," he said. "To achieve that goal, we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes."

If the Administration is resolved to halt the piracy in the region, they better be looking at dealing with the pirates onshore, and not just deterring them once they're at sea.

The Somali Pirate Standoffs Continues

The US Navy is in the vicinity, but no action appears to be forthcoming despite the fact that the pirates on board the drifting lifeboat are now demanding a ransom of $2 million. The Obama Administration's aloofness is even worse than President Carter's feckless response to the Iranian hostage situation. A search of the White House website for the word piracy reveals only three references, the most recent of which is from April 9. It's also telling that instead of treating the piracy as a military act, the Administration is sending the FBI. That is precisely the wrong message to send. It's the message of the weak and shows that the Administration is more than willing to continue tolerating piracy on the high seas. Hoping for the international community to respond and deal effectively with piracy is tantamount to letting it continue festering.

Further, what kind of message does this send to Americans who go overseas on travel or who work around the world? The US isn't going to be there for you either, even if you're the victim of piracy. You're on your own, just as the crew of the Maersk Alabama found. They didn't wait for the US Navy to respond, but took action on their own to overpower the pirates that boarded their ship.

Sadly, the pirates managed to take Captain Phillips hostage on a lifeboat, which is now drifting in the ocean and shadowed by the USS Bainbridge and other US Navy ships heading in that direction. The Navy is trying to stop the pirates from sending reinforcements.

Of course, anyone paying attention knows that the real issue isn't the pirates on the high seas, but the failed state of Somalia and the safe havens that give those pirates refuge. To effectively eliminate the pirates you're going to have to engage in operations on the land of Somalia. You can be sure that the Obama Administration isn't going to pursue a strategy that leads to a Clintonesque Black Hawk Down redux.

A complicating factor is that the Filipino government wants the safety of their people to take paramount concern over any military action. The overwhelming majority of those held captive by the pirates are Filipinos, but the numbers would have been far fewer had the shipping companies, insurance companies, and various navies decided on a zero-tolerance strategy that refused payment of ransoms and warned any pirates that their ships would be sunk on sight. That is how to stop the piracy off the coast of Somalia. You don't stop the piracy by continuing to provide ransoms and the economic incentive for desperate pirates to continue their terror campaign on the high seas.

The French are launching an investigation into why one of the hostages was killed in a three minute rescue operation that saved four other hostages from pirates. Sorry, but that's precisely how you get inaction on the high seas.

Defense Minister Herve Morin acknowledged that it could have been a French bullet that killed hostage Florent Lemacon, during an operation that demonstrated the risks of using military force against sea bandits.

Pirates seized a sailboat carrying Lemacon, his wife, 3-year-old son and two friends off the Somali coast a week ago. On Friday, French navy commandos stormed the boat in an assault triggered by threats the passengers would be executed.

Two pirates were killed, and Lemacon died in an exchange of fire as he tried to duck down the hatch.

"There will be of course a judicial inquiry, therefore there will be an autopsy. We cannot of course exclude that during the exchange of fire between the pirates and our commandos, the shot (that killed Lemacon) was French," Morin said on Europe-1 radio.

Still, he defended the action.

"We, I believe, made the best decision possible," he said.

There are going to be civilians killed in the anti-piracy operations, and all fault resides on the terrorists who seek out civilian shipping to plunder and hold their crews ransom.

UPDATE:
Tack on another ship to the list of those hijacked.

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.

UPDATE:
The AP (via MSNBC) reports that there are "experts" who see the pirates as businessmen, and that the ransoms are there to protect their hostages. It's that kind of logic that enables the pirates to operate with impunity despite hundreds of years of treating the pirates as the lawless thugs that they are and which international law traditionally viewed as subject to suppression and elimination.

The possible payout for Capt. Richard Phillips would be the pirates' top priority and could trump any desire for payback after his recent escape attempt, experts said. The 53-year-old Phillips jumped out of the boat Friday before being forced back in by automatic weapons fire.
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The pirates are businessmen, not suicidal jihadists, said Scott Stewart, vice president for tactical analysis for Stratfor, a global intelligence company based in Austin, Texas.

"These are people who are trying to make money," Stewart said. "They want to survive this. They don't want to die, which is a good thing in the captain's favor."

They don't want to die? Fine. Surrender and give up piracy. Piracy isn't good for your health, and the world must drive that point home. Allowing ransoms to be paid only enables and encourages further piracy. The payment of ransoms continues ratcheting up the costs to everyone, and the demands become ever greater with each passing incident.

UPDATE:
Apparently there are plans to negotiate with the Somali tribal elders and pirates' relatives to avoid bloodshed.

With three U.S. warships in the area, the elders and relatives of the pirates holding Phillips, a father-of-two from rural Vermont, are planning a mediation mission to try to avoid bloodshed, a regional maritime group said.

"They are just looking to arrange safe passage for the pirates, no ransom," group coordinator Andrew Mwangura said.

None of this will deter future piracy, and will only strengthen the pirates going forward. There should be no safe passage, as it shows that the risks of piracy to the pirates themselves have been eliminated. Such action would only encourage further piracy.

UPDATE:
Don Surber links. Thanks!

Somali Pirates Thwart Escape Attempt

Captain Richard Phillips attempted to escape from his captors, jumping overboard and attempting to swim to the USS Bainbridge, but was thwarted when the pirates threatened to kill him.

The pirates, marooned on a small boat in the Indian Ocean and stalked by a U.S. warship, demanded a ransom today for the safe release of Capt. Richard Phillips.

Phillips, the captain of the freighter Maersk Alabama that was hijacked by pirates and then retaken by his American crew, tried to single handedly end the standoff during the night.

He and four pirates have been bobbing in the water for three days. The boat can hold 76 people, so there is room for them to move around at times.

At one point during the night, Phillips courageously leaped off and began swimming for freedom, officials told ABC News. Almost immediately, a pirate jumped in after Phillips and dragged him back to the boat, officials said.

The entire drama was captured by a drone flying overhead that sent back live color video to the nearby U.S. warship, the Bainbridge, officials said.

Once recaptured, Phillips was back with four pirates in the 28-foot lifeboat. The pirates, out of gas but armed with AK-47 rifles, insisted on taking Phillips back to Somalia to hold him for ransom. They are about 300 miles from shore.

I'm concerned that the Navy is taking such a passive stance to ending this standoff. These pirates are going nowhere and can't escape. While it looks like the Navy is simply going to wait the pirates out, there's no reason to do so.

UPDATE:
This Reuters report notes that the piracy issue is just an annoying distraction. Right. It's just a distraction. Sorry, but it's that attitude that keeps piracy going. It isn't a distraction. It's a symptom of the failed state of Somalia and the failure to deal with the lawlessness there. Don't take my word for it (even though I've been saying the same thing as Dr. J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University for some time now). Eliminating the pirate threat means going after the pirates and their home bases up and down the coast. It means giving them no quarter. It means no payment of ransoms, which are counterproductive and give the pirates the economic incentive to continue taking increasing risks to go after bigger bounty.

The pirates are seeking out bigger targets with the hopes of a bigger payday, and it is going to cost shipping crews their lives.

The French decided to put one such hostage situation to an end, and while four hostages were rescued, one hostage was killed. Two other pirates were killed.

UPDATE:
The USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship is moving into the area, along with a guided-missile frigate, USS Halyburton. Both have helicopters that could be used to mount a rescue or assault on the enclosed lifeboat the pirates are using. More here.

Pirates in Waiting Game With US Navy?

The Maresk Alabama was attacked yesterday and pirates attempted to take the ship over before the American crew thwarted it. However, the pirates managed to escape, taking the captain with them. Now, a US Navy destroyer is shadowing the unpowered lifeboat with the pirates and captain on board.

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, said the USS Bainbridge had arrived off the Horn of Africa near where the pirates were floating near the Maersk Alabama.

"It's on the scene at this point," Speers said of the Bainbridge, adding that the lifeboat holding the pirates and the captain is out of fuel.

"The boat is dead in the water," he told AP Radio. "It's floating near the Alabama. It's my understanding that it's floating freely."

Speers said the company "is grateful" for the support it has received from the military establishment and the federal government. He also said that "the safe return of the captain is our foremost priority."

I'm sorry, but why is the Navy playing a waiting game?

Four pirates are holding Capt. Phillips.

So, what was the US ship carrying? How about food aid for starving people in Somalia, Uganda and Kenya.

Smerdon says the WFP cargo includes more than 4,000 tons of corn-soya blend for malnourished children and mothers in Somalia and Uganda and nearly 1,000 tons of vegetable oil for refugees in Kenya. Smerdon says there are many more containers of food aid belonging to the U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies.

"We need to keep a constant pipeline of food coming both to Somalia and to other countries in the region," said Smerdon. "Otherwise, we have to cut rations and people will go hungry. Basically, this amount of food would feed hundreds of thousands of people for a month. It is only a part of the basket of food we give people in the region. But it is an important part."

The Maersk Alabama was scheduled to arrive in Kenya on April 16. But, early Wednesday, the Danish-owned, American-operated ship was seized nearly 500 kilometers off the coast of Somalia by four armed hijackers. The hijacking was the first of its kind involving an American crew in modern history.

Of course, the solution to piracy was found long ago. The US Marine Corps found its inspiration on the Shores of Tripoli fighting the Barbary pirates. Taking the fight to the home bases is the way to stop the pirates, and yet the world seems all too interested in the legalisms of the situation to realize that the world navies have always had the power to act.

It's what I've been saying for quite some time.

UPDATE:
Tigerhawk (no relation) elaborates on effective deterrence and taking the fight to the pirates. The Royal Navy and US Navy both have anti-piracy missions in their long institutional DNA, and there's no reason that both can't do the same once again.