ROK rescues crew from Somali pirates
SEOUL - In a daring and rare raid on Friday, the Republic of Korea (ROK) special forces rescued all 21 crew members aboard a freighter hijacked in the Arabian Sea near Africa, killing eight pirates and capturing five others, Seoul said.
The military operation came a week after Somali pirates seized the ROK freighter and held hostage eight ROK people, two Indonesians and 11 citizens from Myanmar.
"We will not tolerate any behavior that threatens the lives and safety of our people in the future," ROK President Lee Myung-bak said in a brief televised statement.
Lee said he appreciated unspecified countries for cooperating in the military operation. He didn't elaborate.
ROKs special navy forces stormed the hijacked vessel in a pre-dawn rescue operation that left eight of the pirates dead and five captured, Lieutenant General Lee Seong-ho told reporters.
The captain of the ship was shot by a pirate and taken by helicopter to a nearby country for treatment, though the wound is not life-threatening, Lieutenant General Lee said. The 20 other crew members were rescued unharmed, he said.
Storming a ship held by pirates is rare and navies tend to avoid it because of the risk of harming hostages, who are usually kept below decks out of sight. So rescues are not normally attempted once the pirates are onboard the ship unless the crew is locked in a safe room - often called a "citadel" - with two way communications.
The 11,500-ton chemical carrier Samho Jewelry was sailing from the United Arab Emirates to Sri Lanka when it was hijacked on the sea.
It was the second vessel from ROK-based Samho Shipping to be hijacked in the past several months.
In November, Somali pirates freed the supertanker Samho Dream and its 24 crew - five ROK people and 19 Filipinos - after seven months of captivity.
Samho Shipping did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991.
Piracy has flourished off its coast, sometimes yielding multimillion-dollar ransoms.
The ransoms the pirates always get are among the few regular sources of income for small businesses that supply the pirates with food and other goods.
In April 2009, a French navy commando team stormed the yacht Tanit. The shootout killed two pirates and one French hostage and freed four French citizens.
In the same year, US navy snipers also shot three pirates who were holding an American captain hostage in a lifeboat after they had abandoned a larger ship, the Maersk Alabama.
Associated Press
(China Daily 01/22/2011 page7)
