Navy SEALs Rescue Two Aid Workers

[skipper]

“The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice."

Navy SEALs Rescue Two Aid Workers in Somalia in Daring Raid - ABC News

 

[Truthmatters]

same guys who killed OBL

 

[PixieStix]

“The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice."

Navy SEALs Rescue Two Aid Workers in Somalia in Daring Raid - ABC News

Awesome! Way to go guys

 

[Katzndogz]

It had NOTHING to do with the timing of the latest campaign speech, not a thing.

 

[waltky]

Granny says go over there an' kick some more Somali terrorist butt...

Hostage rescue: Will US intervene more in Somalia?
January 25, 2012 - The US military has largely left East African nations to bring peace to Somalia. But hostage rescue, such as the SEAL operation Tuesday, is a tool the US military is using more often.

Now that the US Navy Seals have successfully rescued two hostages – an American and a Dane – from Somali criminal gangs, will the US military begin to increase its presence in the ongoing Somali civil war? Not likely. For starters, the US has largely delegated regional security to others. The fight to control Somalia, led by a shaky transitional Somali government and supported by an African Union peacekeeping force, as well as Kenyan and Ethiopian military forces, is primarily an East African affair. In this fight against the radical Al Shabab Islamist militia, the US military plays only a sporadic and peripheral role. Even in the ongoing foreign naval patrols aimed at controlling Somali piracies in the Indian Ocean, the US Navy is just one of many participants in an operation under European Union naval command.

Yet President Obama praised the Special Operations Forces (members of the famed Navy Seal Team 6), and said that commando operations sent a strong message to kidnappers like Somali pirates. “The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice,” Mr. Obama said. “This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people.”

But even as a tool to combat kidnapping in Somalia, the military option has its drawbacks. While it has proven effective in some individual cases, going in with guns has tended to increase the militancy of the Somali pirates and kidnap gangs, and merely displaced rather than dispersed them. “The rise in kidnapping on land in Somalia is in part due to the fact that the operations against piracy on the sea have increased,” says E.J. Hogendoorn, director of the Horn of Africa program for the International Crisis Group. “The pirate gangs are not trying to take the ships, they are kidnapping the crews and holding them for ransom from the shipping companies, much as the gangs are now kidnapping foreigners on land and holding them for ransom.”

Increased naval sea patrols have managed to protect sea lanes along the crucial route through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and US Navy ships have mounted some surprising rescue missions, including the freeing of Iranian flagged fishing boat Al-Molai on Jan. 5. But studies have shown that increased military patrolling have not reduced pirate attacks, but may have simply spread them out over a wider area, reaching as far east as the Indian coast and as far south as the Seychelles and the coastline of Mozambique. For every pirate “mother ship” captured by European Naval forces, there are dozens of others operating with impunity.

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Somali pirate captors move US hostage after SEAL raid
January 27, 2012 - After the US Navy SEAL rescue of American and Dane hostages this week, Somali pirates say they will move other hostages around, and will kill hostages if they are attacked.

Pirates moved an American hostage at least three times in 24 hours and threatened Thursday to kill him after US Navy SEALs rescued an American and a Dane in a bold, dark-of-night raid that raises questions about whether other Western captives are now in greater danger. "If they try again, we will all die together," warned Hassan Abdi, a Somali pirate connected to the gang holding the American, who was kidnapped Saturday in northern Somalia. "It's difficult to hold US hostages, because it's a game of chance: die or get huge money. But we shall stick with our plans and will never release him until we get a ransom," Abdi said.

US Navy SEALs parachuted into Somalia early Wednesday and hiked to where captors were holding American Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted, a Dane. A shootout ensued and nine captors were killed. Ms. Buchanan, Mr. Thisted and the US troops were all unharmed. The two aid workers had been kidnapped by gunmen in October while working on de-mining projects for the Danish Refugee Council. Buchanan and Thisted were flown to the US Naval Air Base at Sigonella on the Italian island of Sicily to undergo medical screenings and other evaluations before heading home, a US defense official said. Buchanan's family was meeting her at the base, which is the hub of US Navy air operations in the Mediterranean.

Ailing health of hostage

The US government said the raid was prompted by Buchanan's deteriorating health. An ailing Frenchwoman kidnapped by Somali gunmen died in captivity last year after not having access to her medication. In the aftermath of Wednesday's rescue, the gang holding the American kidnapped in the northern town of Galkayo have moved him three times, Abdi said. "Holding hostages in one place is unlikely now because we are the next target," he told The Associated Press by telephone. He also expressed concern that the US has pirate informants. "It wasn't just a hit-and-run operation, but long planned with the help of insiders among us," Abdi said, noting that the Americans struck at a time when the pirates were least on their guard.

US State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said US officials have been in contact with the family of the latest American kidnapping victim. "We are also working with our contacts in Kenya and in Somalia to try to get more information," Nuland told reporters in Washington. "Obviously we condemn kidnapping of any kind and call for the immediate release of the victims — any victims. We also would note that our travel warning for Somalia does caution US citizens about the risk of travel." Other hostages held in Somalia include a British tourist and two Spanish aid workers seized in neighboring Kenya, a French military adviser and 155 sailors of various nationalities hijacked by pirates at sea.

Risks of military raids