FBI joins in high seas hostage situation

UPDATED:

FBI negotiators are being called Thursday to help in the hostage situation off Somalia where an American captain is being held by pirates who highjacked his U.S.-flagged cargo ship, then escaped with him in a lifeboat when the crew retook the vessel.

“FBI crisis negotiators stationed at Quantico, Va., have been called by the Navy to assist with negotiations with the Somali pirates,” said FBI spokesman Richard Kolko.

He also said the agency is”fully engaged in this matter” and that itshostage rescue team, known as HRT, has already been deployed to assist in negotiations.

The team — a branch of the agency’s Critical Incident Response Group — can be deployed anywhere in the world within four hours of notification by the FBI director or a designated representative. Agents are charged with rescuingU.S. citizens and others being held against their will by a hostile force, either terrorist or criminal in nature.

A Navy destroyer reached the scene earlier Thursday morning. However, it is unclear whether the FBI negotiators will join the U.S. sailors.

Kevin Speers, a spokesman for the ship company Maersk, said the armed pirates have yet to make demands to the company for the return of Capt. Richard Phillips, according to the Associated Press.

The incident, which occurred off the Horn of Africa, is the first such attack on American sailors in roughly 200 years. However, it is the most recent in a string of attacks by pirates who have become increasingly brazen over the past year in the waters off Somalia. Pirates are still holding 14 ships and as many as 200 crew members.

U.S. defense officials have said they were weighing “all options” but have yet to intervene.

The USS Bainbridge and at least five other vessels arrived on the scene in the pre-dawn hours Thursday.

The seizure of the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama, which was carrying U.S. food aid to Mombasa, Kenya, was the first involving Americans but the latest in a string of attacks by pirates who have become increasingly brazen over the past year in the waters off Somalia. Pirates are still holding 14 ships and as many as 200 crew members.

They appear to have underestimated the Americans aboard the Maersk Alabama.

Second officer Ken Quinn told CNN that the crew overcame the hijackers and took one of the pirates into custody, but freed him in a failed exchange for their captain, Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vt.

“We took one of the pirates hostage,” Mr. Quinn said by phone. “We had one of their hostages and we kept him for 12 hours. We returned him, but they didn’t return the captain. … It’s not working too good.”

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