The four Americans were passing out Holy Bibles and acting as missionaries to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was their decision and had been their mission for three years. They knew the danger and chose to continue anyway. You can question their choice, but you must also honor their decision to make every effort to convert lost souls -- even if those souls were criminal pirates of the Muslim faith -- knowing they might lose their own lives. The dead are Jean and Scott Adam, a couple from California who had been sailing around the world since December 2004 with a yacht full of Bibles and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, of Seattle, Wash.
In most hijackings the pirates don't really want the hostages other than to convince someone to pay a huge amount for them and for the boat. Apparently negotiations were ongoing but something went very wrong. Gunfire erupted in the cabin of the yacht and two pirates were found dead when U.S. military boarded. I'm wondering if the 4 Americans had a gun on board or somehow got a gun from one of the pirates.
Four Americans taken hostage by Somali pirates off East Africa were shot and killed by their captors Monday, the U.S. military said, marking the first time U.S. citizens have been killed in a wave of pirate attacks plaguing the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean for years.
U.S. naval forces, who were trailing the Americans' captured yacht with four warships, quickly boarded the vessel after hearing the gunfire and tried to provide lifesaving care to the Americans, but they died of their wounds, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement from Tampa, Fla.
Two pirates died during the confrontation and 13 were captured and detained, the U.S. Central Command said. The remains of two other pirates who were already dead for some time were also found. The U.S. military didn't state how those two might have died.
On Monday, two pirates had peacefully come aboard the USS Sterett to negotiate with naval forces for the release of the hostages, and remained aboard overnight.
But on Tuesday, pirates aboard the Quest unexpectedly fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Sterett. Shortly afterward, gunfire erupted inside the Quest cabin, and U.S. special forces responded, approaching the Quest in small boats and boarding the vessel, Vice Adm. Mark Fox, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said in a Tuesday press conference. [snip]
Graeme Gibbon-Brooks, the head of Dryad Maritime Intelligence, said he was confounded by the turn of events.
"We have heard threats against the lives of Americans before but it strikes me as being very, very unusual why they would kill hostages outright," he said, adding that the pirates must realize that killing Americans would invite a military response. (continue reading at CBS)
And what military response will that be or was the taking down of this particular group of pirates all the response we will see?
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Very weird. Some are saying it's just a bunch of kids and they panicked once the US military showed up. You may be right about the hostages grabbing a gun, but why kill them all?
Strange. Maybe Obama will hold a presser and explain.
Posted by: A.C. McCloud | February 22, 2011 at 07:39 PM
A.C.: I don't know about Obama holding a press conference, but he will try to come out looking 'clean and articulate' and innocent, that's for sure.
The last time we had Americans in the Somali pirate's gun sites, Obama waited and waited, almost too long, before "allowing" the snipers to take out the pirates.
Events on the ground, or should I say on the open seas, should be handled on site by our military, not back in Washington by Obama.
Posted by: Debbie | February 22, 2011 at 07:44 PM
I didn't know the hostages were spreading the Gospel when the pirates took them. Unbelievable. God bless these martyrs and their families. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints!
Posted by: Jenny | February 22, 2011 at 08:01 PM