Pirates Fire on US Cruise Ship in Hijack Attempt

Pirates Fire on US Cruise Ship in Hijack Attempt

www.myfoxcleveland.co m

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise liner with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel as it sailed along a corridor patrolled by international warships, a maritime official said Tuesday.

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Well, When will it end? If these idiots know that there are pirate attacks near kenya why are these cruise ships taking these routes?
Thank god that this ship was not taken over. I could only imagine the ransom for 1000 us citizens....Obviously there lives are worth more than the oil on the last ship.


www.myfoxcleveland.co m
(visit the link for the full news article)


*Edit* It did say 656 international passengers and 399 crew members,


[edit on 2-12-2008 by TrainDispatcher]

That was my first thought too.

"Two small boats chased and fired shots at the Nautica eight times, but failed to board the vessel.

Her captain, Jurica Brajcic, manoeuvred away from the pirates and increased speed to outrun them. "

BBC News

[edit on 2-12-2008 by Maya00a]

These pirates will continue doing this as long as they know they can get away with it.

What is wrong with today's forces?
It seems in the past, if you fired on a countries ship, it was a declaration of war, regardless of whether it was a countries army that did the firing, or an organization, you would expect an armed response.

Nowadays, the Navy just sits there and watches.
Apparently, and I could be wrong, but standard procedure now is to send an officer over there to ascertain whether it's been hijacked or not before force can be used.
... yeah, that's brilliant, give them another hostage.

Here we are paying them to get the ships back. I thought we the free world refused to negotiate under these circumstances.


I say it's time to play a little game of entrapment.

Load up a cruise ship with military personnel and equipment, and when the pirates fire the first shot, blow the living heck out of them.

Well, they should have some type of ability such as using wakes to dump these small boats over. Any ship should also have some type of protection as well.

I wonder how many, if any, passengers would have been armed anyway.

These U.S. ships should have a blackhawk helicopter on board as well, along with a few drones that circle them.

I would really like to see some footage of these pirates getting sunk and blasted out of the water. I haven't any pitty for them, in fact I think it would be putting them out of "our" misery.

[edit on 2-12-2008 by aleon1018]

Originally posted by johnsky
It seems in the past, if you fired on a countries ship, it was a declaration of war, regardless of whether it was a countries army that did the firing, or an organization, you would expect an armed response.

Well, nowadays Somalia is not a nation state or any kind of legitimate state at all. So you can't declare a war on Somalia.

However, I would agree with you that an armed response is justified and frankly go as far as suggesting that the harbor facilities used by the pirates need to be destroyed. No declaration of war needed.

I am under the impression that many boat crews have staff that are trained in anti terror tactics including being weapons trained. I don't know if they are trained to repel attacking ships with live fire. You would think it would be a worthwhile effort to the owners of shipping lines and their cargoes. Seriously, they are in international waters so what is to keep them from having a small cannon or grenade launcher locked up in an on ship armory?

Alot of modern cruise ships utilize new directed sound weapons along with high pressure hoses to help repel boarders. From what I gather they can only use deadly force once the pirates board the vessel. But I definatley concur that a coalition strike on the harbors of Somalia would go a long way to send a message. But even more so a naval blockade 5 miles off the coast, sinking any ship without warning if they try to run the blockade without permission.

What if they all issued us an AK-47 with our life jacket... I bet the "Pirates" would be scared #^%$less! I mean... Firing on a cruise ship. That's pretty low... Even for Captain Jack Sparrow.

Ever asked yourself why the pirates are doing such radical movements in the last few months?

Ever asked yourself why they are pirates?

Well corruption has lead them to have no food, no healthcare, nothing, absolutely nothing, and now they will fight their way to it, even though it seems impossible, or is at least... The only way to stop this, is to give them the attention they want, then they wont fight for it....
They are not after weapons, they are after goods to feed their family, and they will fight all the way for this!
I hate how the media looks down to them, yet its our fault of not taking to much notice of third world countries, we take away from them what they desperately need to keep on living!

reply to post by Clairaudience


You do realise these guys have turned their villages into 'boon towns' - apparently they do a job, buy a house and spend the rest on guns, the next job they buy a couple of cars and spend the rest on guns, the next job they buy a boat load of drugs and spend the rest on guns...

You gotta speculate to accumulate.

reply to post by Clairaudience


There sadly are a lot of poor , starving people on our planet who cannot provide for their families. There are very few pirates though. Pirates have money for boats,AK-47s, RPGs, ammo - those things if sold can feed a lot of people for some time. It is because piracy is not Robin Hood stuff, it is self-enrichment. Plain and simple, no reason to make it more noble then it was in Caribbean or Mediterranean. There are also pirates in Asia. And there are very poor people in Zimbabwe who for some reason choose to deal with their everyday struggle without RPG involved. Piracy will be stopped if supplies and money will be brought to Somalia? Or piracy will feed on those ships bringing aid and suffocate the country even more?