MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali pirates vowed today to retaliate for the deaths of three colleagues shot dead by U.S. Navy snipers in a daring nighttime assault that freed American Capt. Richard Phillips.
“Every country will be treated the way it treats us,” said Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town.
“In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying,” he said by telephone. “We will retaliate for the killings of our men.”
It was not clear in what way the pirates could retaliate, though some fear they could take their revenge on the hundreds of foreign nationals they hold on seized ships.
The rescue dealt a blow to pirates who regularly seize passing ships and hold them captive until multimillion-dollar ransoms are paid. But it is unlikely to help quell the region’s pirate threat, which has turned the Gulf of Aden and the waterways along Somalia’s coast into some of the most dangerous shipping lanes on the planet.
The piracy scourge appears to have evolved partly out of an attempt by Somali fishermen to protect their waters against illegal foreign trawlers who were destroying their livelihoods. Some of the vigilantes morphed into pirates, lured by large profits.
Pirates hold more than a dozen foreign ships, most moored along the Horn of Africa nation’s long coast, with about 230 sailors from Russia to the Philippines.
Residents of the Somali town of Harardhere said tensions were growing there.
Clothing store owner Abdullahi Haji Jama said, “We fear that the pirates may retaliate against the foreign nationals they are holding.”
But he also said people feared “any revenge taken by the pirates against foreign nationals could bring more attacks from the foreign navies, perhaps on our villages.”
Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said the American operation “could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it.”
Jamac Habeb, a 30-year- old self-proclaimed pirate, said from the pirate hub of Eyl that “this will be a good lesson for us.”
“From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them,” Habeb said. “Now they (U.S. forces) became our No. 1 enemy.”
“We are determined to continue our business regardless of the recent killings and arrests,” said one pirate holding a German ship in the Somali town of Harardhere.
