Standoff with Somali pirates shows limits to U.S. power

WASHINGTON — The Indian Ocean standoff between an $800 million U.S. Navy destroyer and four pirates bobbing in a lifeboat low on fuel showed the limits facing the world's most powerful military in dealing with a booming pirate economy in a treacherous patch of international waters.

Driven solely by economic gain, not politics or religion, the pirates who captured a U.S. merchant ship's captain Wednesday are unconventional foes for the U.S. military. In recent years, they have extorted millions of dollars from international shipping companies; to help negotiate the captain's release, the Navy turned for advice Thursday to an FBI hostage-rescue team, practiced in a patient approach.

"This is strictly for the money," said Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College, near Charlotte, N.C. "They are not taking the cargo; and they are not interested in killing people." He added: "It's a business model that has proven very effective for them."

While the Boeing surveillance aircraft kept watch on the pirates and their captive, the Navy ship that had steamed more than 300 miles to go to the captain's aid showed no sign of confronting the pirates.

There is no evidence, experts said, of any links between the pirates and Islamic militants in Somalia, and officials said the U.S. would have difficulty striking directly at pirate sanctuaries along the Somali coast, even though the U.S. military has fired missiles within Somalia several times in recent years at people suspected of links to al-Qaida.

Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Thursday that two additional ships would be sent in coming days to the region around the Gulf of Aden and the coast of Somalia to augment an international naval armada that has tried in vain to secure thousands of square nautical miles of sea.

The Gulf, one of the world's busiest and most important shipping lanes, is patrolled by an anti-piracy flotilla from the European Union and a U.S.-led coalition of ships, plus warships from Iran, Russia, India, China, Japan and other nations. But pirates using mother ships — oceangoing trawlers that carry speedier attack vessels — have extended their reach into the waters far off the East African coast. On Saturday, for example, a German freighter was hijacked about 400 miles offshore, between Kenya and the Seychelles.

The Maersk Alabama, the vessel hijacked Wednesday, is a 508-foot-long container ship carrying food and other agricultural materials for the World Food Program and other clients, including the U.S. Agency for International Development.

After the destroyer USS Bainbridge arrived early Thursday, the Alabama steamed away from the scene and toward Mombasa, Kenya, its original destination, carrying the 19 crew members who had managed to regain control of the ship from the pirates.

The pirates and the U.S. hostage, Capt. Richard Phillips, remained in a lifeboat that U.S. officials said was running low on fuel, while Navy P-3 aircraft and unmanned drones flew overhead. A senior U.S. military official said the lifeboat carried 10 days of food and water; the negotiations were being carried out between the pirates and a translator aboard the Bainbridge, with the FBI negotiators consulting from shore, the senior official said.

Relatives of Phillips, 53, described him Thursday as an outgoing daredevil whose sense of humor might be helping him survive. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's had those guys chuckling a few times," said Tom Coggio, Phillips' brother-in-law, who was keeping vigil with other relatives at the Phillips home in Underhill, Vt., outside Burlington. "He's got a quick wit."

Phillips' relatives said he had told his family not to worry about the threat of pirates, saying his ship would be too far out to sea to be a target. "It's not like he was taking it lighthearted," Coggio said, "but it was probably a way of putting my sister at ease."

Shipping companies victimized by the bandits have been wary of a military confrontation that could disrupt the crucial shipping lanes that run from the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean. Experts said companies would rather pay hefty ransoms than arm merchant crews and pay hefty liability-insurance premiums; in 2008 alone, experts estimate merchant-shipping companies paid some $40 million to the Somali pirates.

Rather than arm their crews, most of the major merchant lines with ships transiting the Gulf of Aden have contracts with professional crisis teams that are called when hijack situations occur.

These teams include former special-forces commandos and trained hostage negotiators who deal with the hijackers and their ransom demands, deliveries of food and supplies to ships during lengthy negotiations, the delivery of ransom payments (usually in U.S. $100 bills), and the safe release of hostages.

Pentagon planners are beginning to adjust the U.S. arsenal to deal with the threat posed by pirates and other stateless, low-tech foes. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently announced plans to outfit the Navy with more combat vessels for patrolling coastlines.

The Office of Naval Intelligence this week hosted the Horn of Africa Piracy Conference in Maryland, a gathering of 300 U.S. and foreign government officials, along with experts from academia and representatives from the shipping industry.