Somali pirates holding an American hostage on a drifting lifeboat hauled him back when he jumped overboard to escape and vowed on Friday to fight any attack by US naval forces stalking them at sea. Meanwhile, pirates holding a foreign crew on a hijacked German ship also off the Somali coast were heading towards the lifeboat and intended to help their comrades in their stand-off with US naval forces, a pirate source said.
-- US hostage jumps overboard from lifeboat, hauled back. "Knowing that the Americans will not destroy this German ship and its foreign crew, they (the pirates) hope they can meet their friends on the lifeboat," the pirate source, who has given reliable information in the past, told Reuters from Haradheere port.
The pirates holding US ship captain Richard Phillips want $2 million for his release, the source added. In a separate drama far from the coastline of the African country French forces freed a yacht captured by pirates though one French hostage was killed, French President Nicolas Sarkozys office said in a statement. Four other hostages, including a child, held on the Tanit since April 4, were also freed. Two pirates were killed in the military operation and three others seized.
Phillips leapt into the sea during the night, but at least one pirate quickly followed and brought him back, a defence source said. "He didnt get very far," the official told Reuters. The pirate gang holding Phillips far off the Somali coast in the Indian ocean since Wednesday remained defiant despite the arrival of US and other naval ships in the area. "We are not afraid of the Americans," one of the pirates told Reuters by satellite phone.
"We will defend ourselves if attacked." Despite such militant talk, maritime groups tracking the saga - the first time Somali pirates have captured an American - say a more likely outcome is a negotiated solution, possibly involving safe passage in exchange for the captive.
The gang is also seeking a ransom, friends say. Four pirates have been holding Phillips, a former Boston taxi driver, since Wednesdays foiled bid to hijack the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama several hundred miles off Somalia.
The ships lifeboat has run out of fuel. Two boats full of heavily armed fellow pirates have taken to sea in solidarity with the four on the lifeboat, but are too nervous to come near due to the presence of foreign naval ships including the USS Bainbridge destroyer which is up close. "Other pirates want to come and help their friends, but that would be like sentencing themselves to death," said Andrew Mwangura, co-ordinator of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme that monitors the regions seas.
Phillips is one of about 270 hostages being held at the moment by Somali pirates, who have been preying on the busy sea-lanes of the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean for years. They are keeping 18 captured vessels at or near lairs on the Somali coast - five of them taken since the weekend alone.
Yet the fact Phillips is the first US citizen seized, and the drama of his 20-man American crew stopping the Alabama being hijacked on Wednesday, has galvanised world attention. Phillips apparently volunteered to get in the lifeboat with the pirates on Wednesday to act as a hostage for the sake of the Alabamas crew members, who somehow retook control of their ship. The freighter, which is carrying food aid for Uganda and Somalia, is now on its way to its original destination, Mombasa port in Kenya. It is expected to arrive by Sunday night.
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