Snipers Kill Pirates, Save Captain

With Hostage in 'Imminent Danger,' Navy Seals Shoot Three Captors, Detain a Fourth

By SARAH CHILDRESS and PETER SPIEGEL

U.S. Navy Seal sharpshooters brought a five-day hostage standoff to an abrupt end Sunday with a hail of bullets that killed three pirates holding the captain of an American-flagged cargo ship.

The Navy acted after concluding Capt. Richard Phillips was in "imminent danger," said Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of naval forces in the Middle East.

He told a Pentagon news conference that the USS Bainbridge was towing the lifeboat holding the pirates and a tied-up Capt. Phillips into calmer waters while negotiating with the pirates. He said sharpshooters, positioned at the stern about 80 feet from the lifeboat, saw the heads and shoulders of three pirates onboard, one of them pointing an AK-47 machine gun at the back of Capt. Phillips.

The Navy officer in charge of the operation ordered the pirates to be fired upon, he said.

In Mombasa, Kenya, the crew of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama celebrated word of the rescue of their captain, who they said had offered himself as a hostage four days earlier to help them fend off the pirates. In Washington, President Barack Obama hailed the captain's courage as "a model for all Americans." Mr. Obama, who had given standing orders Friday for the Navy to rescue Capt. Phillips if the danger escalated, spoke with him by phone Sunday after he was freed.

Mr. Obama said the U.S. is "resolved to halt the rise of piracy." But Vice Admiral Gortney also said that the rescue ending in the pirates' deaths could ramp up violence in the increasing wave of pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia, in which crews and pirates have seldom been harmed. "This could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it," he said.

Adm. Gortney said U.S. officials had hoped to resolve the standoff peacefully, and that a fourth pirate had been on the Bainbridge as part of hostage negotiation talks. But Adm. Gortney said tensions escalated between the pirates and negotiators. "It got heated and the on-scene commander interpreted hostile intent," Adm. Gortney said. The fourth pirate, now in Navy custody, may face criminal charges in the U.S.

Attacks in the region started to soar last year, as Somali pirates -- long active in these waters -- started venturing farther from shore and going after bigger game. In just a few months, they have morphed from an obscure and seemingly antiquated annoyance for shipowners into a serious threat to one of the world's most important shipping lanes.

The hostage drama started Wednesday, when a small band of pirates swung grappling hooks and climbed ropes from their skiff onto the Maersk Alabama, a container ship then ferrying food aid to East Africa. The American crew of 20 managed to wound the apparent leader of the pirates in the hand with an ice pick and regain control, with the pirates retreating to their lifeboat holding Capt. Phillips, a 53-year-old mariner from Underhill, Vt. Interviews with a handful of crew members over the weekend provide a rough outline of events.

Just before 7 a.m. Wednesday, the skiff with four pirates sped up from behind the vessel. Crew member ATM Reza saw them fire into the air as they leapt aboard the ship. Many of the crew members scrambled into a designated safe room aboard the vessel. William Rios, a crew member from Manhattan, was one of them. "It was a nightmare," he said.

On the bridge, the pirates held four sailors, including Mr. Reza, at gunpoint. Mr. Reza said he volunteered to take one of the pirates -- a scrawny man who he said identified himself as Abdul Mohamed -- down to the engine room. When they got there, he thrust an ice pick into the man's hand, in an account corroborated by other crew members. The crew bound the pirate's hands and feet with rope.

In Norfolk, Va., it was half past midnight Wednesday morning when executives at Maersk Line Ltd., a U.S. subsidiary of Danish shipper A.P. Møller-Maersk AS, first got word their ship had been taken. Maersk, one of the biggest shippers for the U.S. government and the Pentagon, set up a crisis center and huddled with U.S. officials. Military commanders dispatched the Bainbridge, an American destroyer, then 300 miles away.

Aboard the Maersk Alabama, the balance of power had tilted in the crew's favor. They didn't have guns like the pirates, but the crew greatly outnumbered the four attackers. The crew demanded the other pirates leave the ship, crew members said, but the pirates had scuttled their own small boat. They demanded an escape boat, fuel and food.

Amid the standoff, Capt. Phillips offered himself as a hostage to safeguard the crew. "They agreed, and we agreed," said crew member Andrew Brzezinski. "They promised to let go of the captain when we sent back the hostage."

Once the pirates settled into the lifeboat, the crew released their hostage. But the pirates refused to let Capt. Phillips free. "They wanted us to follow them to Somalia," said Mr. Brzezinski.

As dawn approached Thursday morning, the Bainbridge was in visual range of the Maersk Alabama and its lifeboat. The Navy dropped off provisions and extra batteries for the radio the lifeboat was using to communicate with the Navy ship.

Later that day, Maersk Alabama got under way, at the Navy's suggestion, the company said, and headed for Mombasa. Several crew members were upset at abandoning their captain. "I can't describe my feelings" about it, said Mr. Brzezinski.

On Friday, Capt. Phillips jumped out of the lifeboat and managed to swim a few yards toward the nearby destroyer. The pirates went in after him and managed to haul him back in, according to an account by a Somali go-between, reached by cellphone. A U.S. Navy official said the pirates fired shots at Capt. Phillips before retrieving him. The Navy didn't intercede at that point.

Over the weekend, the USS Boxer, a massive amphibious assault ship, and the USS Halyburton, a guided-missile frigate, joined the Bainbridge in the vicinity of the lifeboat.

Late Saturday, Bernard Odemba, a harbor captain in the Mombasa port, boarded the Maersk Alabama to help pilot the vessel in. He said the crew "were still suspicious" about other boats approaching the ship. "Whenever they saw any kind of boat...I had to calm them down."

Late Saturday evening, as the Maersk Alabama docked in Mombasa, about seven crew members clad in blue overalls and hard hats watched from the railings. A few waved and one pumped his fist as the ship approached. Several credited the captain they were forced to leave behind.

"He's a hero," said Ken Quinn, one of the ship's officers, who had been woken by the pirates when they boarded the ship. He shouted to reporters from the railing as the vessel pulled in. "The whole crew misses him...we owe the captain our lives."

As news of the captain's rescue leaked out late Sunday, the ship's horn blared three times. Shortly afterward the crew unfurled a big American flag and shot off a red flare that popped and lingered overhead.

—Alex Roth, Philip Shishkin, Chip Cummins, Evan Perez and Yochi Dreazen contributed to this article.