Navy to send more forces in pirate standoff

[wahyinghung]

MOMBASA, Kenya — The U.S. military on Thursday said it was sending in more ships to the scene of a standoff with Somalia pirates holding an American hostage on a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean.

A day after pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama aid ship before being overpowered by the unarmed American crew, the high-seas drama remained unresolved with both the pirates and the U.S. Navy promising to move in reinforcements.

The four pirates were ousted from the 17,500-tonne Danish-operated container ship, but were still holding the captain hostage on a lifeboat.

More naval ships were to join the destroyer USS Bainbridge that arrived overnight to help secure the release of the American, U.S. defence officials said.

"The safe return of the captain is the top priority," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters in Washington.

The reinforcements were coming from naval forces already deployed in the wider region, including a counter-piracy task force out of Bahrain, officials said.

"There's more naval assets being moved south from where they are towards where the (USS) Bainbridge is currently engaged in its activity with this pirate ship," an official with the US Central Command, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

The Navy earlier had called in negotiators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation "to assist with negotiations with the Somali pirates and are fully engaged in this matter," the FBI said in a statement.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the pirates' lifeboat was "apparently" out of fuel though military officials declined to confirm her account.

A spokesman for the Maersk shipping company, Kevin Speers, told reporters that "most recent contact with the Alabama indicated that the captain remains a hostage but is unharmed at this time."

Meanwhile the freighter was boarded by military personnel and headed to its destination port of Mombasa, in Kenya, with its cargo of aid destined for African refugees, US and company officials said.

The guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge arrived overnight to monitor the situation and prevent the pirates from securing their hostage on a larger ship, accompanied by a P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft overhead.

It was believed to be the first American merchant ship hijacked since the North African Barbary Wars in the early 19th century, underlining the anarchy raging off Somalia despite an international naval effort against piracy.

A commander from the group of pirates who took the ship said more pirates were on their way to try and help those holding the hostage, who are effectively surrounded.

"We are planning to reinforce our colleagues who told us that a navy ship was closing in on them and I hope the matter will soon be solved," Abdi Garad told AFP by phone from the northern pirate lair of Eyl.

"They are closely monitored by a navy ship and I think it will be difficult for us to reach the area promptly," he said, with US helicopters swirling the area.

"But we are making final preparations and will try our best to save our friends."

The Maersk Alabama's chief officer, Shane Murphy, reportedly told his father that the crew used "brute force" to overpower the pirates, who were armed with AK-47 assault rifles.

The incident was the latest in a series across the western Indian Ocean, a vital global shipping lane where increasingly brazen pirates on small skiffs have hijacked anything from small sailing yachts to huge super-tankers.

At any given time more than a dozen foreign naval vessels operate in the area in a bid to deter piracy but the vast expanse of ocean plays to the advantage of the pirates.

The foreign vessels include ships from a U.S. anti-piracy task force, a NATO force, a European Union mission as well as from China, India, Japan, Malaysia and Russia.

The Maersk Alabama had been due to dock in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on April 16 to deliver more than 5,000 tonnes of relief food supplies to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

Over the past week, pirates have seized a German vessel, a small French sailing yacht, a British-owned Italian-operated cargo, a Taiwanese fishing vessel and a Yemeni tugboat.

The flurry of attacks, one of the worst ever off the coast of Somalia, shattered a relative lull in hijackings since the start of the year which now appears to have owed more to weather than increased naval presence.

Clinton called the pirates "nothing more than criminals" and Pentagon officials said there was no sign the hijackers had links to Islamist militants in Somalia.
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