S. Korea navy 'kills Somali pirates, saves crew'

[Lighthawk]

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korean navy commandos on Friday stormed a ship hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, rescuing all the 21 crew and killing eight pirates, military officials said.

The SEAL special forces boarded the South Korean ship before dawn, freeing all the hostages and killing the pirates in cabin-to-cabin battles, they said. Five other pirates were captured.

"This operation demonstrated our government's strong will that we won't tolerate illegal activities by pirates any more," Lieutenant-General Lee Sung-Ho of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a news briefing.

The South Korean skipper of the chemical freighter suffered a gunshot wound to his stomach during the raid but his condition is not life-threatening, the military said. No commandos were hurt.

The rescue about 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) off northeast Somalia was seen as a major morale boost for the South's military. It has faced strong domestic criticism for a perceived weak response to North Korea's shelling of a border island last November.

President Lee Myung-Bak, who authorised the operation, said the military carried out the raid perfectly under difficult circumstances.

"We will not tolerate any activities that threaten the safety and lives of our people," he said.

The pirates seized the 11,500-ton ship and 21 crew members -- eight South Koreans, two Indonesians and 11 from Myanmar -- on January 15 in the Arabian Sea when it was en route to Sri Lanka from the United Arab Emirates.

Seoul ordered a destroyer on patrol in the Gulf of Aden to give chase and President Lee ordered "all possible measures" to save the crew.

General Lee said the commandos moved in after receiving information that the "mother ship" for the pirates was leaving a Somali port.

"Since we thought we could be in an extremely difficult situation if the pirates joined forces, we chose today to carry out the operation."

Lee praised the freighter's 57-year-old skipper Suk Hae-Kyun for his prudence. "Pirates sought to take the vessel to the Somalian coast fast but the skipper helped us earn time by manoeuvring the vessel in a serpentine manner."

To distract the pirates' attention, the destroyer fired warning shots and manoeuvred close to the hijacked vessel. A Lynx helicopter provided covering fire as the commandos stormed the ship.

The Koreans were assisted by a US carrier which also provided a helicopter to transfer the wounded Korean skipper.

"It was breathtaking news," said Suk Hyun-Wook, son of the 58-year-old skipper, describing his response to reports of the raid.

Kim Doo-Chan, 61, was also among the rescued crew. "I feel so relieved," his 28-year-old son Dong-Min told Yonhap news agency. "I'm ecstatic."

The military said Friday's rescue followed a brief gunbattle Tuesday, when the destroyer encountered pirates who had apparently left the South Korean freighter to try to seize a nearby Mongolian vessel.

The South Korean commandos aboard a speedboat and a Lynx helicopter were dispatched to rescue the Mongolian ship.

Tuesday's firefight left several pirates missing and believed killed, although their bodies have not been found, a JCS spokesmen said. Three commandos were slightly hurt.

Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan broke the news at a New Year's reception Friday for the heads of foreign diplomatic missions in Seoul, bringing applause and cheers from the ambassadors, a foreign ministry official said.

The captured five pirates could be brought to South Korea or third countries for punishment, he said.

The hijacking came two months after a supertanker belonging to the same company, Samho Shipping, was released after being held for seven months.

The 300,000-tonne Samho Dream and its 24 crew were freed only after the pirates were paid a ransom reported as a record $9 million.

Piracy has surged off lawless Somalia in recent years, and international warships patrol the area in a bid to clamp down on the problem. Pirates are currently holding 29 vessels and about 700 hostages.

In 2008 the French military became the first to respond militarily to piracy in the region, when marines raided the yacht Carre d'As and freed two hostages being held by seven Somali pirates. One pirate was killed and the other six captured.

In one of the most controversial rescues, Russian marines freed 23 crew barricaded on board a Russian tanker, the Moscow University. The pirates were later found dead and adrift in a small boat.

Source

[Tyyr]

Nice, very nice. You start shooting them instead of paying them off and they'll find another line of work.

[Mikey]

Or, they'll just assume room temperature and won't bother anyone.

It's also a conveniently timed scapegoat to distract folks from SK's virtual paralysis towards NK's saber-rattling.

[Mark]

Well, NK is run by a lunatic. They can't really go to war every time that nut job starts howling at the moon.

[Mikey]

Well, NK is run by a lunatic. They can't really go to war every time that nut job starts howling at the moon.

Indeed, for various and sundry reasons. This happening is tailor-made to distract from that fact.

[Tyyr]

Nah, KJI isn't stupid. The whole point for him is to stay in power so he can keep drinking scotch and watching American movies. He's not going to go to war. He just starts shit once in a while to remind the planet he's there and heavily armed. However you still have to wonder how far you can really push back against them. How hard do you push him back so that they get the picture but not get more of your own people killed. It's ugly and unfortunate but in the interests of keeping the peace sometimes you just have to ignore NK's hormonal outbursts.

[Sionnach Glic]

KJI won't go to war, because he's smart enough to see that, even though he'd cause a lot of casualties amongst South Korea, he'd still ultimately end up swinging from the gallows.

I'm more concerned about whoever comes after him.

[stitch626]

I'm more concerned about whoever comes after him.

Ditto. Devil you know kind of thing.

[Sionnach Glic]

It's not so much that as it is the fact that the next guy to take charge is likely to have spent litteraly his entire life being subjected to NK propaganda about how they're the greatest and most powerful nation in the world. KJI, for all his sabre-rattling, knows that that isn't true. If the next guy thinks it is[i/], even if only for the first few weeks he's in office, things have the ability to get very ugly very quickly.

[Graham Kennedy]

I was watching one of those Ross Kemp investigation things earlier, and he was interviewing Somali pirates and looking at why they do what they do. One pirate had an interesting take on the whole business; he thought it was terrifically unfair that the west is actually shooting the pirates in a lot of cases. He made the point that to the pirates it's just a kidnapping business; they wave guns around to intimidate and ensure compliance, but all they really want is to get a ransom and leave again - they don't want to kill people, and in fact pirates almost never do kill anybody. He thought the west was really not "playing the game" properly.

I know the kinds of responses that will draw, and I'm not at all saying he's right, but I thought it was an interesting viewpoint.

[Tsukiyumi]

I find it hilarious.

At least some of them have the "Illegal fishing killed my livelihood, and this is all I can do" excuse.

This guy is saying "I should be able to wave guns at people and get money for it, and it's not fair to fight back." It's like a burglar saying a security system is unfair.

[Deepcrush]

Hey, if that burglar lives long enough to complain then that's your fault and no one else's.

[Mikey]

sorry, double.

[Mikey]

I was watching one of those Ross Kemp investigation things earlier, and he was interviewing Somali pirates and looking at why they do what they do. One pirate had an interesting take on the whole business; he thought it was terrifically unfair that the west is actually shooting the pirates in a lot of cases. He made the point that to the pirates it's just a kidnapping business; they wave guns around to intimidate and ensure compliance, but all they really want is to get a ransom and leave again - they don't want to kill people, and in fact pirates almost never do kill anybody. He thought the west was really not "playing the game" properly.

I know the kinds of responses that will draw, and I'm not at all saying he's right, but I thought it was an interesting viewpoint.

#1 - Whatever these guys may think about "the way the game is played," there's enough evidence about the Western response to hostage-takers to pretty much guess that it will involve shooting you.

#2 - OK, the guy has a fair point. Instead of shooting the pirates, we should incapacitate them with rubber bullets, tasers, and bean-bag rounds; then just forget to get them off-board when we burn their ships to the water.

The guy's logic reminds me of an interview I saw with an immigrants'-rights advocate - namely the part in which she wondered aloud why "illegal immigrants are being treated as if they were doing something illegal."

[Mark]

For some reason, this reminds me of the guy who called the cops to report that somebody had stolen all of the drugs from his apartment.