THE American crew of a hijacked US-flagged container ship retook control of the vessel from Somali pirates yesterday, but the captain was still being held hostage in a lifeboat, according to Pentagon officials and a member of the crew.
The crew member said the 20-strong ship's complement had managed to seize one pirate and then successfully negotiate their own release.
The man, who answered the ship's satellite phone but did not identify himself, said the pirates were in a l
ifeboat. However, he added that they were holding the ship's captain hostage.
The news came some hours after Pentagon officials said the Maersk Alabama was no longer under the command of the Somali pirates who seized it far off the Horn of Africa.
US officials say an American warship, the US navy destroyer Bainbridge, and half a dozen other vessels are headed to the scene.
US president Barack Obama was following the situation closely, foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough said.
The Maersk Alabama was the sixth vessel seized within a week, a rise that analysts attribute to a new strategy by Somali pirates who are now operating far from the warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden.
Maritime officials said the 17,000-tonne vessel was seized far out in the Indian Ocean, in an escalation in attacks off the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
The ship was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group AP Moller-Maersk.
Among the ship's cargo were 400 containers of food aid, including 232 belonging to the United Nations' World Food Programme that were destined for Somalia and Uganda.
An American-flagged vessel has not been taken by hostile forces for around 200 years, and the prize of 20 American hostages would have been a major bargaining chip for the pirates – with the possibility that captives could have been passed on to Islamic militias active in Somalia.
The top two commanders of the ship graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Andrea Phillips, the wife of Captain Richard Phillips, from Underhill, Vermont, said her husband had sailed in those waters "for quite some time" and a hijacking was perhaps "inevitable".
A British-owned, Italian- operated bulk carrier with 16 Bulgarian crew was taken on Monday.
Over the weekend, the pirates also seized a French yacht, a Yemeni tug and a 20,000-tonne German container vessel.
The Hansa Stavanger had a German captain, three Russians, two Ukrainians and 14 Filipinos on board. Last year, heavily-armed Somali pirates hijacked dozens of vessels, took hundreds of sailors hostage –often for weeks – and extracted millions of dollars in ransoms.
Foreign navies sent warships to the area in response and reduced the number of successful attacks.
But there are still near-daily attempts and the pirates have started hunting further afield near the Seychelles.
Somali pirates are trained fighters who often dress in military fatigues and use speedboats equipped with satellite phones and GPS equipment.
They are typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and various types of grenades. Far out to sea, their speedboats operate from larger mother ships.
The pirates then take captured vessels to remote coastal village bases in Somalia, where they have usually treated their hostages well in anticipation of a sizeable ransom payment.
Pirates stunned the shipping industry last year when they seized a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth (£68 million) of crude oil.
The Sirius Star and its 25 crew members were freed in January after $3 million was parachuted on to its deck.
Last September, pirates seized a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 Soviet-era T-72 tanks and heavy weapons. It was released in February, reportedly for a $3.2 million ransom.
