Somali pirates on Tuesday vowed to retaliate for the deaths of three colleagues who were shot dead by U.S. Navy snipers hours before in a daring nighttime assault that freed a 53-year-old American captain.
Jamac Siad one of the pirate members based at Harardhere coastal town in central Somalia said they are determined to kill the Americans and the French.
Jamac accused the Americans of committing inhuman acts after they killed their colleagues badly while they were negotiating with them as he said.
The Navy Seals late Sunday rescued freighter Capt. Richard Phillips, who had been held by pirates on a lifeboat that drifted in the Indian Ocean for five days.
"We are not pirates, we are young teenagers who stood up to defend their coastal areas from foreign ships that are dumping toxic waste to Somalia’s coast,” said Jamac Siad.
“In the future, we will behead Americans and French,” he added.
A Somali parliamentarian, Ahmed Bile said he was very shocked by the American actions.
He said it was not good to kill three people for the sake of one man. He added that the Americans could find other ways of solving the problems of piracy.
He warned that such killings would spark further violence in Somalia’s coast.
Pirates currently hold more than a dozen foreign ships, most moored along the Horn of Africa nation's long coast, with about 230 foreign sailors from Russia to the Philippines.
The American rescue followed a similar operation Friday carried out by French navy commandos, who stormed a pirate-held sailboat, the Tanit, in a shootout at sea that killed two pirates and freed four French hostages. The French owner of the vessel was also killed in the assault.
amsomalia@mareeg.com
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