For the second day in a row, US forces have apprehended pirates in the Gulf of Aden, treacherous waters off the Somali coast where US and international forces have been battling pirates preying on international vessels.
The US Navy said it apprehended nine suspected pirates on Thursday after responding to a distress signal from the Indian-flagged vessel Premdivya, which said it was fired upon by men in a nearby skiff who were trying to board their vessel.
WARNING SHOTS
In a statement from the 5th Fleet’s Bahrain headquarters, the Navy said a helicopter from the USS Vella Gulf fired two warning shots at the pirates to stop them from fleeing.
When authorities boarded the skiff and searched it, they found weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, and the suspected pirates were taken aboard the USS Vella Gulf.
A day earlier US forces operating in the area arrested seven suspected pirates — the Navy’s first arrest since a new US anti-piracy task force was established this year.
The seven pirates apprehended on Wednesday were transferred via helicopter from the Vella Gulf to the USNS Lewis and Clark on Thursday.
Associated Press television footage showed some of the men, all handcuffed and wearing leg shackles and white jumpsuits, being escorted from helicopters onto the ship.
The men, who were not allowed to talk to each other, were given a meal, a blanket and a towel and bar of soap with which to take a shower. With the help of a translator, US forces were trying to get information from the men such as their ages and nationalities.
The men were then to be taken to a makeshift holding area surrounded by razor wire, where they were watched by US forces.
The seven were apprehended after the US Navy responded to a distress call from the Marshall Islands-flagged Polaris, which said men in a skiff had tried to board their vessel using a ladder.
A US vessel raced to the location where US troops apprehended the pirates, who were armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.
Associated Press television footage also showed pictures of the boat the men used while trying to take the ship hostage, a small skiff that was lifted by crane onto the Lewis and Clark.
JURISDICTION
Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet, said the seven would eventually be handed over to Kenya. The US announced an agreement last month allowing for suspected pirates to be handed over to Kenya.
Officials are gathering more information and evidence on Thursday’s incident so they could turn the suspects over to authorities for prosecution, most likely also to Kenya as well, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious