AFTER days of tense negotiations, the US Navy rescue of an American sea captain came in a matter of seconds on Easter Sunday when a few sniper bullets killed three Somali pirates who authorities feared were about to kill him.
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The commanding officer of the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge had received approval from the US President, Barack Obama, to attempt a rescue of Captain Richard Phillips by force if the seafarer's life appeared to be in imminent danger after five days of captivity off the coast of Somalia.
And with the seas becoming choppier and the increasingly agitated captors pointing an automatic weapon at Captain Phillips, Commander Frank Castellano decided he had no other option.
The Bainbridge skipper gave the green light and sharpshooters at the warship's stern opened fire on the pirates, who were partially exposed aboard the small, enclosed lifeboat.
The lifeboat was being towed by the Bainbridge at the time. Captain Phillips, who was bound and standing, was uninjured in the attack, in the Gulf of Aden at 7.19pm Somali time.
Captain Phillips's three captors, who were armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols, appeared to have died instantly. "We pay a lot for their training and we earned a good return on the investment tonight," Vice-Admiral William Gortney, commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command, said of the snipers.
A fourth man who had been holding the captain captive since the pirates failed on Wednesday to seize the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, was aboard the Bainbridge negotiating with the navy. He was taken captive by US authorities.
Military officials confirmed the soft-spoken captain had placed his own safety at risk to protect his crew, helping fight off the initial pirate attack and later offering himself as a hostage.
Until his release, Captain Phillips was aboard the 7.3-metre lifeboat and repeatedly threatened by the pirates, who were seeking millions of dollars in ransom for his release.
"His courage is a model for all Americans," Mr Obama said.
Captain Phillips said: "I'm just the byline. The real heroes are the navy, the Seals, those who have brought me home."
In the nearby Kenyan port of Mombasa, where the Maersk Alabama had arrived on Saturday without its captain, the crew erupted in celebration when told of his release.
In Washington, Mr Obama praised the military and other US officials involved in the rescue. But he warned that while the first known hostage-taking of an American merchant seaman on the high seas in more than a century was over, the broader problem of piracy was not.
Captain Phillips, 53, was taken hostage by the pirates after the crew defeated their attempt to take over the Maersk Alabama, a US-flagged and Danish-owned vessel that was carrying humanitarian aid to Africa. The captain and his captors had been floating in a covered life raft, out of fuel and shadowed by US warships.
The captain jumped off the lifeboat on Friday night in a swim for freedom but was quickly recaptured by the pirates.
The rescue ended an incident that was considered to be one of the first tests of how the Obama Administration would deal with international terrorism.
By Saturday, the US negotiators had convinced the pirates to allow them to send an inflatable boat out to their lifeboat with food, water and even a change of clothes for Captain Phillips. That effort proved invaluable when one of the captors agreed to come aboard the Bainbridge to negotiate and enough rapport was built up with the pirates so that the warship was given permission to tow the lifeboat when bad weather caused the seas to become very choppy and potentially dangerous.
It was during that tow that the snipers got a clear view of Captain Phillips's captors.
The rescue was a blow to the pirates of Somalia, who have for years preyed on international shipping and who still hold more than a dozen ships with about 230 civilian sailors from many nations. Admiral Gortney believed the rescue could provoke retaliation among Somali clans. He said the solution lay in going after the pirates on land in Somalia and other safe havens.
Some Somali pirates were quoted on radio as saying they would step up their activities and kill hostages the next time before they could be killed themselves.
Los Angeles Times, Associated Press
