MOMBASA: Somali pirates fired grenades and automatic weapons at an American freighter loaded with food aid but the ship managed to escape the attack and headed to Kenya under US Navy guard, officials said.
One of the pirate commanders said yesterday the attack on the American freighter Liberty Sun late Tuesday was aimed at “destroying” the ship in revenge for an operation that freed a US captain.
“This attack was the first against our prime target,” pirate commander Abdi Garad told AFP. “We intended to destroy this American-flagged ship and the crew on board but unfortunately they narrowly escaped us.
“The aim of this attack was totally different. We were not after a ransom. We also assigned a team with special equipment to chase and destroy any ship flying the American flag in retaliation for the brutal killing of our friends.”
Despite US President Barack Obama’s vow to halt their banditry and the deaths of five pirates in recent French and US hostage rescue missions, brigands seized four vessels and more than 75 hostages off the Horn of Africa since Sunday’s dramatic rescue of the American freighter captain, Richard Phillips.
That brought the total number of sailors being held by Somali pirates to over 300 on 17 different ships — a distinct surge in the number of captives over the last few days.
Pirates can extort $1 million or more for each ship and crew — and Kenya estimates they raked in $150 million last year.
The Liberty Sun’s American crew was not injured in the latest attack but the vessel sustained some damage, owner of the Liberty Maritime Corp. said.
Still, the attack foiled the reunion between Richard Phillips and the 19-man crew of the Maersk Alabama who he had saved with his heroism.
Capt. Phillips was planning to meet his crew in the Kenyan port of Mombasa and fly home with them yesterday. But he was on the USS Bainbridge when it was diverted to help the Liberty Sun, and the crew left Mombasa without him yesterday on a chartered plane.
“We are very happy to be going home,” crewman William Rios of New York City said before departing. “(But) we are disappointed to not be reuniting with the captain in Mombasa. He is a very brave man.”
Maersk spokesman Gordan van Hook said crew members would arrive at Andrews Air Force base in Maryland. Their reunion with Phillips will now take place in the United States, he said, without elaborating.
Liberty Sun sailors used one of the same tactics Phillips employed to foil the pirates — blockading themselves inside the engine room.
“We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets,” crewman Thomas Urbik, 26, wrote his mother in an e-mail Tuesday. “We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt. A rocket penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire, too, but put out.” The Liberty Sun “conducted evasive maneuvers” to ward off the pirates, said US Navy Lt. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet.
“That could be anything from zigzagging to speeding up to all kinds of things,” he said. “We’ve seen in the past that that can be very effective in deterring a pirate attack.” The USS Bainbridge responded to the Liberty Sun’s call for help but the pirates had left by the time it arrived five hours later, Navy Capt. Jack Hanzlik said.
The ship, with 20 American mariners, had left Houston with a load of humanitarian food aid for the UN World Food Program. Some of that aid was destined for Somalia, where nearly half the country’s seven million people depend on food aid.
This year, Somali pirates have attacked 79 ships and hijacked 19 of them. One pirate declared they are grabbing more ships and hostages now to prove they are not intimidated by Obama’s pledge.
“Our latest hijackings are meant to show that no one can deter us from protecting our waters from the enemy because we believe in dying for our land,” Omar Dahir Idle told The Associated Press by telephone from the Somali port of Harardheere.
Pirates say they are fighting illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters but now operate hundreds of miles from there in a sprawling 1.1 million square-mile danger zone.
In another development, a French warship patrolling waters off East Africa as part of an EU anti-piracy force captured 11 pirates near the Kenyan coast yesterday, the French Defense Ministry said.
The frigate chased the pirates 500 nautical miles east of the Kenyan coast after tracking them overnight from the scene of a failed attack on a Liberian-registered vessel, a ministry spokesman said.
“The pirates were sailing a 10-meter mother ship carrying 17 drums holding 200 liters of fuel each and two assault skiffs,” he said, adding that the captives were being held on board the French warship, the Nivose.
