Four Hostages Killed.

[PoliticalChic]

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that gunshots aboard the yacht were heard, and the warship took action, dispatching forces to board the Quest.

The U.S. forces found the four Americans has been shot by their captors and attempted to deliver lifesaving medical care - but all four ultimately died of their wounds, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
4 Americans on hijacked yacht dead off Somalia - CBS News

and, a related note....

Long before there were suicide bombers, Osama bin Laden or chants of "Death to the Great Satan," a Trenton man named Ion Perdicaris became the 20th century's first American victim of Middle Eastern terrorism.

It all happened in 1904, when the 64-year-old Perdicaris
and his stepson found themselves taken hostage from their villa in Tangier, Morocco by a scruffy band of rifle-toting Berber tribesmen on horseback.

The bandits' chieftain was flamboyant, black-bearded Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, and he wanted to extort a heavy ransom from the Sultan of Morocco -- not to mention embarrass the sovereign by showing his powerlessness to protect foreign citizens.

This was more than a simple kidnapping in a distant land. For President Theodore Roosevelt, it was an opportunity to start waving his "big stick," sending battleships steaming toward the African coast to ensure Perdicaris' safe release.

It also gave Roosevelt the chance to issue one of his most blood-curdling proclamations, a statement that helped ensure his re-election while sending Americans wild with joy:

"Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!"
1904: Teddy's Big Stick

 

[Ravi]

What would possess someone to go yachting in a place known for pirates and how sad that they endangered other Americans in the process.

 

[High_Gravity]

What would possess someone to go yachting in a place known for pirates and how sad that they endangered other Americans in the process.

Same as the Americans who went hiking near the Iranian boarder and the reporters that walked into North Korea, Americans really don't know how to act sometimes. I never hear about Indians backpacking into Waziristan or Israeli college students hitch hiking to Baghdad.

 

[JBeukema]

How many threads are we going to have on this?

 

[AmericanFirst]

What would possess someone to go yachting in a place known for pirates and how sad that they endangered other Americans in the process.

Typical lib idiot, blame the victims. Shoot all pirates on sight. Time to treat the pirates correctly, like dogs.

 

[waltky]

Kinda like CBS sendin' Lara Logan back to Egypt after she said it wasn't safe on the Charlie Rose show...

Americans Killed by Pirates Knew the Risks, Friends Say
Feb 22, 2011 – Jean and Scott Adam loved to sail, but they almost shipped their yacht across the Arabian Sea to avoid a run-in with pirates, a friend said today.

Scott Stolnitz, a friend of the California couple killed by pirates early today along with two other Americans off the coast of Oman, said the Adams knew the risks of sailing in the pirate-infested waters. Stolnitz, also an avid sailor, said he and Scott Adam had spoken about the dangers before their ill-fated trip. "This is all of our worst nightmares," he told the Los Angeles Times. This is the first time U.S. citizens have been reported killed by pirates. The Adams, who were retired, were sailing their yacht around the world distributing Bibles when they were hijacked Friday by Somali pirates on their way to Djibouti to refuel. With them on board the SV/Quest were two other Americans, Phyllis Macay, 59, and Robert Riggle, 67, a Seattle couple who shared a love of adventure with the Adams.

Macay's niece, Nina Crossland, told The Seattle Times that Macay had been updating her family on her journey from the sailboat before it was hijacked and sent an e-mail to her mother last week telling her they'd "gotten information about the possibility of pirates before starting down their current route," but didn't believe they were in danger. The four Americans were killed today in a burst of gunfire as the U.S. Navy tried to negotiate their release. Two pirates were killed as well, and 13 more were taken into custody. The two couples had been sailing as part of a flotilla but separated from the group Feb. 15. The Adams were religious and had traveled around the world on their yacht for nearly a decade, offering Bibles and doing missionary work. Scott Adam, 70, once worked as an associate film producer but had recently gotten a degree from Fuller Seminary in California, according to the BBC.

"They were not proselytizing evangelicals," Stolnitz told CNN. "They were using their Bible mission as a way to break the ice in the Christian community, particularly in the Pacific." Robert Johnston, one of Scott Adam's professors at the seminary, said the couple sent an e-mail Feb. 12 explaining that they would be out of communication for nearly two weeks because they didn't want to be located by pirates. "They basically had said, 'We're not going to be in communication for 10 or 12 days because we know this is territory where there could be problems and we don't want pirates or other people to know our location,' " Johnston told BBC News. On a blog the couple kept detailing their exploits around the world, Scott and Jean Adams wrote that they planned to travel to Djibouti, north of Somalia, to refuel. Piracy is rampant in the waters off the east coast of Africa and has become more aggressive in recent years.

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