Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members aboard, FOX News has learned.
The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya at the time it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. A Kenya-based diplomat identified the vessel and told the Associated Press all crew members are American. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The U.S. Navy confirmed the hijacking early Wednesday off the eastern coast of Somalia and said it is monitoring the situation with its own ships.
Spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen said the attack happened in the early hours of the morning, about 280 miles northeast of Eyl, a town in the northern Puntland region of Somalia. "The area, the ship was taken in, is not where the focus of our ships has been," Christensen told The Associated Press on the phone from the 5th Fleet's Mideast headquarters in Bahrain.
"The area we're patrolling is more than a million miles in size. Our ships cannot be everywhere at every time," Christensen said. He declined to release the name of the ship until the family members of the crew are notified. He said the ship was operated by the Danish company Maersk, which deals with the U.S. Department of Defense. Christensen said the vessel was not working under a Pentagon contract when hijacked.
"Our initial concern is to ensure proper support of the crew and assistance to their families," Maersk said in a statement. An U.S. embassy spokeswoman was not immediately able to confirm the incident.
Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program said the ship was taken about 400 miles from the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The vessel is the sixth to be seized within a week and the first with an all-American crew.
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8 comments:
The thing I find absolutely shocking is why these ships are not carrying security on board.
It would seem they could contract with Blackwater or a smiliar agency for a team of SWAT types who's job it would be to discourage the smugglers from coming on board.
The cost of doing that would have to be one hell of a lot cheaper than being hijacked
retired cop and proud NRA memeber
After a few of these highjackers got killed, they may think twice of doing so...
look how many reports have been out over the last yr or two about this and yet we still don't have guards on these ships.
"U.S. Flagged City Hijacked By Tyrant From Allen"
Twelve years of terror brought down by the voters on 07 April 2009. This day will go down in the history of Salisbury and be forever remembered.
Good ole Africa , what a country.
A complete continent of animals.
Lets send more aid , my god people , wake up. Nuke everything except the jungles.
"opps, this is an American ship, we made a mistake" There was a day WE would have sent the aid, and means to take this ship back. Lets see what Obama chooses to do? We MUST send the message, you still can't screw with the USA.
There is no chance the President will do anything except seek advice from his tele-prompter.
Lets not forget he has family members who live in the area. So military intervention is out of the question.
We're too soft. Put armed guards on these ships, and if you see a small boats racing toward you, fire a warning shot, then shoot to kill.
Yep let's see what Mr. Obama will do now If he does nothing but talk about how awful the world is and we must make some resolutions and the rest of his great oratory skills.
Maybe you will see him as the Communist he is and realize he is ruining this country. This needs to be dealt with with force. We need a President with balls enough to take the ship back and free our American hostages and kill the f--king pirates that are really Muslim Terrorists. But seeing our new President trying to make nice an apoligize to all our enemy countries I doubt this will happen.
Also he is trying to bankrupt our country. You wanted change well you sure as hell got it. Change from Democacy to Communism. I believe that is when the government controls everything in your life. Thank you liberals for such a change.
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