Obama vows crackdown on Somali pirates

US president Barack Obama vowed to “halt the rise of piracy” as shipmates of the rescued American freighter captain called for tough action against Somali bandits.

Mr Obama appeared to move the piracy issue up his agenda, saying the US would work with nations elsewhere in the world.

“I want to be very clear that we are resolved to halt the rise of piracy in that region and to achieve that goal, we’re going to have to continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks,” Mr Obama said at a Washington news conference.

The night-time rescue operation of Richard Phillips by US Navy SEALs won praise abroad but it was uncertain how far Mr Obama wanted to go to engage the pirates.

The US was considering options including adding navy gunships along the Somali coastline and launching a campaign to disable pirate “motherships” according to military officials.

Some military strategists believe it may ultimately be necessary to attack the pirates’ bases on land in Somalia. But few international allies have the appetite for another land operation in Somalia, where a US military foray in the early 1990s ended in humiliation. Also, the cost in civilian casualties would probably be extremely high, some warn.

“That would be nuts,” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and US State Department counter-terrorism specialist.

“These people are not organised into any military force, they are intermingled with women and children. You’re talking about wiping out villages.”

But the chief mate aboard the US-flagged Maersk Alabama was among those urging strong US action.

“It’s time for us to step in and put an end to this crisis,” Shane Murphy said. “It’s a crisis. Wake up.”

In Burlington, Vermont, Mr Phillips’ wife Andrea made a tearful public appearance, her first since the rescue of her husband on Sunday. She thanked Mr Obama, who approved the dramatic sniper operation that killed the pirates holding him.

“You have no idea, but with Richard saved, you all just gave me the best Easter ever,” she said in a statement read by the family’s spokeswoman.

On the other side of the world, the 19 crew members on the Alabama celebrated their skipper’s freedom with beer and an evening barbecue in an area cordoned off from journalists, said crewman Ken Quinn, who ventured out holding a Tusker beer – a popular brew in Kenya, where the ship was docked.

Meanwhile, new details emerged yesterday about the stand-off.

Fearing the pirates’ lifeboat was approaching the Somali shore, where they could escape, the USS Bainbridge rammed it back out towards sea, said a spokesman for Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. That happened before the Bainbridge put a tow line on the lifeboat to help it navigate the choppy sea.

The four pirates that attacked the Alabama were between 17 and 19, defence secretary Robert Gates said.

“Untrained teenagers with heavy weapons,” Mr Gates told a group of students and staff at the Marine Corps War College. “Everybody in the room knows the consequences of that.”

US officials were now considering whether to bring the fourth pirate, who surrendered shortly before the sniper shootings, to the US or possibly turn him over to Kenya.

Both piracy and hostage-taking carry life prison sentences under US law.

The pirate had surrendered to seek medical attention. He was stabbed with an ice pick during a scuffle with the crew when the pirates initially tried to overtake the Alabama, a senior military official said.

The American ship had been carrying food aid bound for Rwanda, Somalia and Uganda when the ordeal began on Wednesday, hundreds of miles off Somalia’s eastern coast.

As the pirates clambered aboard and shot in the air, Mr Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men.

Mr Phillips was then taken hostage in an enclosed lifeboat that was soon shadowed by three US warships and a helicopter. Navy SEAL snipers parachuted from their aircraft into the sea, and were picked up by the Bainbridge, a senior US official said.

US defence officials said snipers got the go-ahead to fire after one pirate held an AK-47 close to Mr Phillips’ back.

The snipers killed three pirates with single shots shortly after sailors on the Bainbridge saw the hostage-takers “with their heads and shoulders exposed”, Vice Admiral Gortney said.

Pirates have 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off lawless Somalia.