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French Commandos Rescue 2 Held By Somali Pirates
The Associated Press out of Paris, France is reporting that the French army rescued two french hostages in a gunbattle with Somali pirates. The gun battle left one of the Somali kidnappers dead and six others were captured by the French. Andrew Mwangura, the East Africa Coordinator of Seafarers Assistance Program, stated that French military commandos carried out the operation on Monday.
"One pirate was killed and six others were captured during the operation carried out on Monday by the French military commandos," Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone.
The president gave the order for the operation at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) Monday, the statement said, without providing further details of the rescue.
The two hostages were safe and healthy after being held by the pirates for nearly two weeks. The couple, Jean-Yves and Bernadette Delanne, were sailing through the Gulf of Aden when the Somali pirates captured them on September 2. After seizing the boat, the pirates took it to Bargai Village, known as a pirate's den in Somalia's northern region.
Many attacks take place along Somalia's 3,700 km of largely unpatrolled coast infested by pirates, who operate high-powered speedboats and carry heavy machine guns and rocket launchers.
As of this most recent incident, the Gulf of Aden has been the scene of almost all of the 54 pirate attacks this year. The Gulf of Aden is located in the Arabian Sea between Yemen and Somalia. The Gulf of Aden is a very important waterway for shipping, especially for oil that is coming out of the Persian Gulf. The Gulf of Aden is also where the terrorist attack was carried out on the USS Cole in 2000.
In a fresh attack Monday, armed pirates hijacked a Hong Kong chemical tanker with 22 crew members in the Gulf of Aden, said a maritime official based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The tanker was en route to Asia and sailing in a maritime security corridor patrolled by an international naval force when it was attacked, said Noel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau.
As a result of the piracy in the Gulf of Aden, several European Union nations have sent warships to the coast of Somalia in a attempt to stop acts of piracy. Ships that head to Somalia with food aid are escorted by ships from Drance, Denmark, Canada, and the Netherlands. Until fairly recently, the pirates did not attack pleasure boats or fishinf boats.
September 16, 2008 at 12:37 am by Gh0s7, 374 views, 1 comment
Crowd Power
Gh0s7
Boone, North Carolina, United States
tiha zaman
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 04:07 on September 16th, 2008
Gh0s7, I like this story. It's good stuff. Interesting, Johnny has a post out about the Pirates as well. and the French President complaining about them. Military units will most likely be the only thing stopping this sort of Piracy.