<span style=”font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;”>The captain is being held hostage by the pirates.
</span><br style=”font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;” /><br style=”font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;” /><span style=”font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;”>When http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_pirate skimmed across the Indian Ocean and muscled their way aboard a US food aid ship yesterday, it had all the hallmarks of a depressingly familiar scene: a hostage cargo ship, a vulnerable crew and a well-organized team of brigands with the firepower and know how to seize a ship and demand a fat ransom.
<br /><br />But as a dramatic tussle on the high seas played out last night, it became clear this was a startlingly different confrontation to the regular string of hijackings and hostage-takings that have plagued the waters off the Horn of Africa in recent months.</span>
<span style=”font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;”>The 20-member crew, all Americans, had been training for such a hijack and put that into action, foiling the pirates. Although apparently unarmed and facing four pirates with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47, a ship’s officer said they had managed to overpower one and take him captive, and recapture the ship.
<br /><br />But the remaining three pirates took the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, with them as a hostage. The crew today are pinning their hopes of his rescue on the destroyer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bainbridge_(DDG-96) which has arrived at the scene, and half a dozen other vessels speeding to the rescue.
<br /><br />http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/08/somalia-pirates-captain-hostage</span>