U.S. raid in Somalia frees U.S., Dane hostages

[Mustank]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-573654...-dane-hostages/

 

(CBS/AP) MOGADISHU, Somalia - U.S. military forces flew in helicopters under the cover of darkness on a raid into Somalia early Wednesday and freed an American and a Dane held hostage, Western officials said. Pirates reported a gun battle with several casualties.

 

 

The Danish Refugee Council confirmed that the two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagan Thisted, were freed "during an operation in Somalia." Buchanan and Thisted had been working with a de-mining unit of the Danish Refugee Council when they were kidnapped in Somalia in October.

 

 

An official told The Associated Press that the raid was carried out by U.S. military forces. A second official said the helicopters and the hostages landed at a U.S. base in the tiny East African nation of Djibouti after the raid. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been released publicly.

 

 

According to NBC News, it was two helicopters carrying Navy SEAL teams which carried out the operation. Sources tell NBC there was a firefight with the armed kidnappers as the SEALs approached their compound, resulting in the deaths of multiple suspects, but no U.S. or hostage injuries.

 

 

Various reports on the Internet identified Buchanan as a 32-year-old former fourth-grade teacher from the Arlington, Virginia area.

 

 

(Credit: CBS/AP) Maj. Kelly Cahalan, a military spokeswoman at U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany, said she had no information on the reported raid. A spokeswoman at the Pentagon had no immediate comment.

 

 

The Danish Refugee Council said both freed hostages are unharmed "and at a safe location."

 

 

A pirate who gave his name as Bilal Hussein said he had spoken to pirates at the scene of the raid and they reported that nine pirates had been killed. A second pirate who gave his name as Ahmed Hashi said two helicopters attacked at about 2 a.m. at the site where the hostages were being held about 12 miles north of the Somali town of Adow.

 

 

The Danish Refugee Council had earlier enlisted traditional Somali elders and members of civil society to seek the release of the two hostages.

 

 

[Mustank]

http://news.yahoo.com/us-danish-hostages-r...-070511037.html

 

 

 

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - U.S. helicopters swooped into Somalia on Wednesday and rescued an American and a Dane after a shootout with pirates holding them hostage, in a rare raid into the Horn of Africa nation to free foreign captives.

 

American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted were kidnapped from the town of Galkayo in the semi-autonomous Galmudug region in October while working for the Danish Demining Group (DDG).

 

"The Danish Refugee Council hereby confirms that Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted have been rescued earlier today during an operation in Somalia," the aid group said in a statement, adding that the two were unharmed at a safe location.

 

Somali pirate gangs typically seize ships in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden and hold the crews until they receive a ransom. The kidnapping of the aid workers in Galkayo was an unusual case of a pirate gang being behind a seizure on land.

 

While U.S. and French forces have intervened to rescue pirate hostages at sea, attacks on pirate bases are very rare. The only U.S. military base in Africa, and France's largest on the continent, are both in neighbouring Djibouti.

 

Galmudug President Mohamed Ahmed Alim told Reuters nine pirates were killed and five captured during the rescue operation near the pirate haven of Haradheere.

 

Alim was speaking from Hobyo, another pirate base north of Haradheere, where he said he was negotiating the release of an American journalist seized on Saturday, also from Galkayo.

 

"About 12 U.S. helicopters are now at Galkayo. We thank the U.S. Pirates have spoilt the whole region's peace and ethics. They are mafia," Alim said.

 

MORE HOSTAGES

 

Pirates and local elders say a British tourist kidnapped from Kenya on September 11, 2011, the American journalist and a number of sailors from India, South Korea, the Philippines and Denmark are being held by pirates around Haradheere and Hobyo.

 

NBC News, citing U.S. officials, reported that two teams of U.S. Navy SEALs landed by helicopter and rescued the hostages after a gun battle with the kidnappers. The freed hostages were taken by helicopter to an undisclosed location, NBC reported.

 

President Barack Obama was overheard congratulating Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, apparently for the success of the rescue operation, as Obama entered the House of Representatives chamber on Tuesday night to give his annual State of the Union speech.

 

"Leon. Good job tonight. Good job tonight," Obama said. He did not mention the rescue during his speech.

 

Panetta visited U.S. troops in Djibouti mid-December on his way to Afghanistan and Iraq, in a stopover that reflected the Obama administration's growing focus on the militant and piracy threats emanating from Yemen and the eastern edge of Africa.

 

In Djibouti, the United States has a platform to monitor, partly through the use of surveillance drones, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen and Somalia's al Shabaab, a hardline rebel group with links to al Qaeda.

 

U.S. special forces killed senior al Qaeda militant Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in a raid in southern Somalia in 2009. Nabhan was suspected of building the bomb that killed 15 people at an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya in 2002.

 

Several other al Qaeda or al Shabaab officials have been killed in U.S. drone strikes in Somalia over the past few years.

 

[Mockngbrd]

when will have movie? ?

[Unidentified]

when will have movie? ?

 

 

call what?

saving private hostage? or

black pirate down?