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U.S. navy eyeballs Somali pirates in hostage standoff
Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:37am EDT
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By Abdi Guled
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali elders sought to mediate on Saturday between the U.S. navy and pirates holding an American hostage in a high-seas standoff that presents President Barack Obama with a nasty new dilemma.
Four pirates adrift in a lifeboat far out in the Indian Ocean with Richard Phillips, the 53-year-old American captain of a cargo ship they tried to seize on Wednesday, have demanded $2 million for his release and a guarantee of their own safety.
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.
French special forces stormed a yacht held by pirates elsewhere in the lawless stretch of the Indian Ocean on Friday in an assault that killed one hostage, but freed four.
Two pirates were killed and three captured.
On Saturday pirates seized another vessel, a U.S.-owned, Italian-flagged tugboat with 10 Italians among its 16-member crew, NATO alliance officials on a warship in the region said.
Earlier, attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the cabin of the commanding officer of another ship in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen. They also fired bullets.
The grenade did not explode and the ship's crew managed to repel the attackers with water hoses, the NATO officials said.
A U.S. military official said the destroyer USS Bainbridge was near the lifeboat and had been joined by the USS Boxer, the flagship of a U.S.-led multinational counterpiracy task force.
The Boxer, which has a crew of about 1,000 and can carry around 2,000 U.S. Marines, is equipped with a hospital and dozens of attack planes and helicopters.
The guided missile frigate USS Halyburton is also nearby.
"VERY DETERMINED GUY"
At one point, Phillips tried to escape the lifeboat by jumping overboard, but was quickly recaptured.
Relatives and friends told the New York Times he was a generous, wryly funny but "very determined guy" who played the saxophone and did household chores when not at sea. Continued...
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