By Celestine Achieng
MOMBASA, Kenya, April 11 (Reuters) - A U.S.-flagged container ship that was briefly seized by Somali pirates arrived safely in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Saturday as a Somali mediator headed to sea in hopes of securing the release of the ship's American captain.
'The captain is a hero,' one unidentified crew member shouted over the side of the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama as it docked. 'He saved our lives by giving himself up.'
The ship, under the command of Richard Phillips, was attacked by gunmen far out in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday but its 20 American crew fought off the hijackers and regained control of the freighter.
Phillips was taken hostage and is being held captive on a drifting lifeboat by the gang of four pirates who want $2 million ransom for him, as well as safe passage.
At one point, Phillips tried to escape by jumping overboard but 'didn't get very far,' a U.S. official said.
Three U.S. warships were in the area around the pirates' lifeboat and a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said crew members from one of the warships, the destroyer USS Bainbridge, were able on Friday to see Phillips from a distance of several hundred yards (metres) moving and talking aboard the life boat after his failed escape.
Phillips is one of about 270 hostages being held by Somali pirates preying on the busy sea-lanes of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Somalia has suffered 18 years of civil conflict and the international waters off the Horn of Africa have become some of the most dangerous in the world.
Yet the facts that Phillips is the first U.S. citizen seized and that his crew regained control of the ship have galvanized world attention.
'Once again, it has taken American involvement to get world powers really interested,' said a diplomat who tracks Somalia from Nairobi. 'I hope they don't forget the Filipinos and all the others once this guy is released.'
The standoff has also forced U.S. President Barack Obama to focus on a place most Americans would rather forget. They remember with a shudder the disastrous U.S.-U.N. intervention in Mogadishu, including the 'Black Hawk Down' battle in 1993 when 18 U.S. troops were killed in a 17-hour firefight that later inspired a book and a movie.
A White House spokesman said Obama received multiple updates on the piracy situation on Saturday, both on paper and by phone.
CRIME SCENE
John Reinhart, president and CEO of the Norfolk, Virginia-based Maersk Line Ltd, said the FBI was investigating the hijacking in Kenya.
'Because of the pirate attack, the FBI has informed us that this ship is a crime scene,' he told a news briefing in Norfolk. '... Therefore, the crew members will have to stay on board the vessel.'
But during the docking, a crewman shouted to reporters a message that he wanted passed on to his family in the United States -- 'I'm happy, I'm safe.'
The shipping company would send a replacement crew to Mombasa so this crew could go home to their families as soon as they were released, Reinhart said. He declined to say what future safety measures Maersk ships would take in the lawless waters.
The world has been waiting to hear how the crew retook control of their vessel, which was carrying thousands of tonnes of food aid for Somalia, Uganda and Kenya.
Somali elders sent a mediator on Saturday in hopes of resolving a standoff between the U.S. Navy and the four pirates holding Phillips.
With three U.S. warships in the area, Somali elders and relatives of the pirates holding the 53-year-old Vermont father-of-two hoped the mediator could avoid bloodshed, said a regional organization that monitors piracy.
'They are just looking to arrange safe passage for the pirates, no ransom,' said group coordinator Andrew Mwangura.
ENGLISH-SPEAKING MEDIATOR SENT TO SEA
The mediator, a Somali man, took to sea in a boat but it was unclear how he planned to reach the pirates' lifeboat several hundred miles (km) at sea. The mediator speaks English, which hopefully will bridge the language gap between the pirates and the American side.
'The man took a boat but how he will spot the lifeboat is the question,' Aweys Ali Said, head of the local Galkayo region's local authority, told Reuters. 'The elders want the captain to be released and the pirates to come home safely. But I understand, the pirates need a ransom, come what may.'
Relatives said Phillips had volunteered to join the pirates in their lifeboat in exchange for the safety of his crew.
Another band of pirates seized a U.S.-owned, Italian-flagged tugboat with 10 Italians and six others on board on Saturday, NATO alliance officials on a warship in the region said.
Earlier, attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the cabin of the commanding officer of another ship in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen. They also fired bullets.
The grenade did not explode and the ship's crew managed to repel the attackers with water hoses, the NATO officials said.
Friday French special forces stormed a yacht held by pirates elsewhere in the lawless stretch of the Indian Ocean in an assault that killed one hostage but freed four. Two of the pirates were killed and three captured.
A U.S. military official said the Bainbridge near the lifeboat had been joined by the Boxer, the flagship of a U.S.-led multinational counterpiracy task force that has a crew of about 1,000 and dozens of attack planes and helicopters. The guided U.S. missile frigate Halyburton also was nearby.
The gang holding Phillips remained defiant. 'We will defend ourselves if attacked,' one told Reuters by satellite phone.
Pirates on a 20,000-tonne German container vessel with 24 hostages gave up an attempt to use the ship as a 'shield' to protect the lifeboat holding Phillips.
PIRATES CAN'T FIND THEIR COMRADES
'We have come back to Haradheere coast. We could not locate the lifeboat,' one pirate on the German ship the Hansa Stavanger, who identified himself as Suleiman, told Reuters.
Filipinos make up the largest contingent of all the hostages in the region. Pirates are keeping about 17 captured vessels on Somalia's eastern coast -- six taken in the last week alone.
In Somalia's semi-autonomous northern Puntland region, which prides itself on its relative stability, a court sentenced 10 pirates to 20 years in prison Saturday for attacking a Syrian-registered ship in October 2008.
But piracy seems sure to go on while Somalia stays in chaos.
Insurance premiums have risen and some shippers just avoid the area, sending cargoes round South Africa to Europe instead of through the Gulf of Aden into the Suez Canal.
Piracy has been growing for years but hit headlines in 2008 when there were 42 hijackings including the world's largest sea hijack of a Saudi tanker carrying $100 million of oil.
The piracy off Somalia has disrupted shipping, delayed food aid to East Africa and raised insurance costs. Some cargo ships have been diverted to travel around South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal.
(Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Mohamed Ahmed in Mogadishu, Abdiqani Hassan in Bosasso, Abdiaziz Hassan in Nairobi, Daniel Wallis and Celestine Achieng in Mombasa, Alison Bevege on board the NRB Corte-Real, Andrew Gray, Anthony Boadle, David Morgan and Bill Trott in Washington, William Maclean in London and Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi; writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Bill Trott; editing by Sandra Maler)
((nairobi.newsroom@reuters.com; +254 20 222 4717)) Keywords: SOMALIA PIRACY/ (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http:/af.reuters.com/) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
MOMBASA, Kenya, April 11 (Reuters) - A U.S.-flagged container ship that was briefly seized by Somali pirates arrived safely in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Saturday as a Somali mediator headed to sea in hopes of securing the release of the ship's American captain.
'The captain is a hero,' one unidentified crew member shouted over the side of the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama as it docked. 'He saved our lives by giving himself up.'
The ship, under the command of Richard Phillips, was attacked by gunmen far out in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday but its 20 American crew fought off the hijackers and regained control of the freighter.
Phillips was taken hostage and is being held captive on a drifting lifeboat by the gang of four pirates who want $2 million ransom for him, as well as safe passage.
At one point, Phillips tried to escape by jumping overboard but 'didn't get very far,' a U.S. official said.
Three U.S. warships were in the area around the pirates' lifeboat and a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said crew members from one of the warships, the destroyer USS Bainbridge, were able on Friday to see Phillips from a distance of several hundred yards (metres) moving and talking aboard the life boat after his failed escape.
Phillips is one of about 270 hostages being held by Somali pirates preying on the busy sea-lanes of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Somalia has suffered 18 years of civil conflict and the international waters off the Horn of Africa have become some of the most dangerous in the world.
Yet the facts that Phillips is the first U.S. citizen seized and that his crew regained control of the ship have galvanized world attention.
'Once again, it has taken American involvement to get world powers really interested,' said a diplomat who tracks Somalia from Nairobi. 'I hope they don't forget the Filipinos and all the others once this guy is released.'
The standoff has also forced U.S. President Barack Obama to focus on a place most Americans would rather forget. They remember with a shudder the disastrous U.S.-U.N. intervention in Mogadishu, including the 'Black Hawk Down' battle in 1993 when 18 U.S. troops were killed in a 17-hour firefight that later inspired a book and a movie.
A White House spokesman said Obama received multiple updates on the piracy situation on Saturday, both on paper and by phone.
CRIME SCENE
John Reinhart, president and CEO of the Norfolk, Virginia-based Maersk Line Ltd, said the FBI was investigating the hijacking in Kenya.
'Because of the pirate attack, the FBI has informed us that this ship is a crime scene,' he told a news briefing in Norfolk. '... Therefore, the crew members will have to stay on board the vessel.'
But during the docking, a crewman shouted to reporters a message that he wanted passed on to his family in the United States -- 'I'm happy, I'm safe.'
The shipping company would send a replacement crew to Mombasa so this crew could go home to their families as soon as they were released, Reinhart said. He declined to say what future safety measures Maersk ships would take in the lawless waters.
The world has been waiting to hear how the crew retook control of their vessel, which was carrying thousands of tonnes of food aid for Somalia, Uganda and Kenya.
Somali elders sent a mediator on Saturday in hopes of resolving a standoff between the U.S. Navy and the four pirates holding Phillips.
With three U.S. warships in the area, Somali elders and relatives of the pirates holding the 53-year-old Vermont father-of-two hoped the mediator could avoid bloodshed, said a regional organization that monitors piracy.
'They are just looking to arrange safe passage for the pirates, no ransom,' said group coordinator Andrew Mwangura.
ENGLISH-SPEAKING MEDIATOR SENT TO SEA
The mediator, a Somali man, took to sea in a boat but it was unclear how he planned to reach the pirates' lifeboat several hundred miles (km) at sea. The mediator speaks English, which hopefully will bridge the language gap between the pirates and the American side.
'The man took a boat but how he will spot the lifeboat is the question,' Aweys Ali Said, head of the local Galkayo region's local authority, told Reuters. 'The elders want the captain to be released and the pirates to come home safely. But I understand, the pirates need a ransom, come what may.'
Relatives said Phillips had volunteered to join the pirates in their lifeboat in exchange for the safety of his crew.
Another band of pirates seized a U.S.-owned, Italian-flagged tugboat with 10 Italians and six others on board on Saturday, NATO alliance officials on a warship in the region said.
Earlier, attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the cabin of the commanding officer of another ship in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen. They also fired bullets.
The grenade did not explode and the ship's crew managed to repel the attackers with water hoses, the NATO officials said.
Friday French special forces stormed a yacht held by pirates elsewhere in the lawless stretch of the Indian Ocean in an assault that killed one hostage but freed four. Two of the pirates were killed and three captured.
A U.S. military official said the Bainbridge near the lifeboat had been joined by the Boxer, the flagship of a U.S.-led multinational counterpiracy task force that has a crew of about 1,000 and dozens of attack planes and helicopters. The guided U.S. missile frigate Halyburton also was nearby.
The gang holding Phillips remained defiant. 'We will defend ourselves if attacked,' one told Reuters by satellite phone.
Pirates on a 20,000-tonne German container vessel with 24 hostages gave up an attempt to use the ship as a 'shield' to protect the lifeboat holding Phillips.
PIRATES CAN'T FIND THEIR COMRADES
'We have come back to Haradheere coast. We could not locate the lifeboat,' one pirate on the German ship the Hansa Stavanger, who identified himself as Suleiman, told Reuters.
Filipinos make up the largest contingent of all the hostages in the region. Pirates are keeping about 17 captured vessels on Somalia's eastern coast -- six taken in the last week alone.
In Somalia's semi-autonomous northern Puntland region, which prides itself on its relative stability, a court sentenced 10 pirates to 20 years in prison Saturday for attacking a Syrian-registered ship in October 2008.
But piracy seems sure to go on while Somalia stays in chaos.
Insurance premiums have risen and some shippers just avoid the area, sending cargoes round South Africa to Europe instead of through the Gulf of Aden into the Suez Canal.
Piracy has been growing for years but hit headlines in 2008 when there were 42 hijackings including the world's largest sea hijack of a Saudi tanker carrying $100 million of oil.
The piracy off Somalia has disrupted shipping, delayed food aid to East Africa and raised insurance costs. Some cargo ships have been diverted to travel around South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal.
(Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Mohamed Ahmed in Mogadishu, Abdiqani Hassan in Bosasso, Abdiaziz Hassan in Nairobi, Daniel Wallis and Celestine Achieng in Mombasa, Alison Bevege on board the NRB Corte-Real, Andrew Gray, Anthony Boadle, David Morgan and Bill Trott in Washington, William Maclean in London and Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi; writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Bill Trott; editing by Sandra Maler)
((nairobi.newsroom@reuters.com; +254 20 222 4717)) Keywords: SOMALIA PIRACY/ (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http:/af.reuters.com/) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.