Negotiations Break Down in Standoff With Pirates

(Compiler's note: If we didn't already know specifically where these pirates came from ashore, we do now .... piracy is NOT a crime situation but a military one and must be handled as such. May I strongly suggest that this situation and the possibility of any future pirate attacks can be taken care of in one coordinated action followed by total obliteration of the sources. Our U.S. Navy took more direct action in the days of the wooden ships under sail.)

Reporting was contributed by Serge F. Kovaleski from Underhill, Vt.; Mark Mazzetti from Washington; Liz Robbins from New York; and employees of The New York Times from Somalia.

....Maersk Alabama, a 17,000-ton cargo vessel, pulled into port at 8:30 Saturday evening in Mombasa, Kenya, with its 19 remaining American crew members ..... the crew was not allowed to leave the ship because the F.B.I. — whose New York office has been charged with investigating the seizure — considered the vessel a crime scene.....

....On Saturday, a group of Somali elders from Gara’ad, mediating on behalf of the pirates, spoke by satellite phone to American officials, according to Abdul Aziz Aw Mahamoud, a district commissioner in the semiautonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. The elders proposed a deal in which the pirates would release Captain Phillips, with no ransom paid, and that the pirates would then be allowed to escape.

But Mr. Abdul Aziz said that the Americans insisted that the pirates be handed over to Puntland authorities, and the elders refused. By noon local time, the Americans cut off communications with the elders, he said. ....

.... The four pirates, according to the district commissioner, were split between two clans, one from southern Somalia and one from Puntland. ....

....Not far from the Phillips home, at the Wells Corner Market, an owner, Laura Wells, said: “If the Navy is going to do something, they better do it now, because they cannot let him get to shore. Once he gets to shore, he is lost, because we don’t know where he would be taken.”....