Two armed pirate boats have attacked a US cruise liner 100 miles from the coast of Somalia. Allegedly the pirates fired a rocket propelled grenade
and used machine guns to attack the Seabourn Spirit that is owned by Miami based Carnival Corp. The cruise ship is said to have been carrying
approximately 151 passengers mostly from the US while a portion of the passengers were said to have been Australian and Europeans. Only one minor
injury has been reported to one crew member and the ship managed to outrun the pirates.
www.boston.com
MIAMI --Pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade and machine guns Saturday in an attack on a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast, the
vessel's owners said.
Two armed boats approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia and fired as the boats' occupants attempted to get onboard,
said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.
The crew initiated a trained response and avoided being boarded, Good said. The ship outran them and changed its course.
"Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft," Good said.
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
This is a developing story and further details are not available at this time, other then the fact that ship has not lost its sailing ability and is
continuing onto its destination.
I do however have some concern over this considering where this took place, I think that perhaps it is possible the individuals were not pirates but
terrorists posing as pirates wanting to make an attack on US and Australian citizens. I say this only because their primary religion is Muslim based
and I would not put it past them.
Admittedly, I could be wrong so this is just speculation on my part, but certainly a possibility knowing the radicals are fleeing Afghanistan and
possibly Iraqi into African nations where it is believed they are now setting up new training bases.
Somalia
Why is the Bush administration worried about terrorism in Somalia?
Because Somalia is a chaotic, poor, battle-weary Muslim country with no central government. As Secretary of State Colin Powell has said, "terrorist
activity might find some fertile ground there, and we don't want that to happen." Moreover, U.S. government officials say that Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda terrorist network supported Somali radical Islamists, organized training camps in Somalia, and threatened American troops in Somalia who were
there on a U.N. humanitarian mission in the early 1990s.
Could Osama bin Laden or other al-Qaeda leaders hide in Somalia?
Conceivably. But they would have to get there first. And Somalia differs from Afghanistan in several key respects, experts say. First, while Somalia
is about as big as Afghanistan, its landscape lacks Afghanistan's many natural hiding places. Second, Somalia is a more secular society where
Taliban-style fundamentalism is unfamiliar. Third, Somalia's pragmatic, secular local authorities are well aware of the multimillion-dollar U.S.
bounty on the heads of al-Qaeda leaders.
cfrterrorism.org...
[edit on 11/5/2005 by shots]
Apparently, no such thing happened here. 
