Four Americans aboard a yacht hijacked by Somali pirates were gunned down by their captors Tuesday.

U.S. forces responded to gunfire aboard the yacht Quest at approximately 1 a.m. Tuesday, but discovered all four hostages had been shot by their captors. Despite attempts to save their lives, all four hostages died of their wounds.

“We express our deepest condolences for the innocent lives callously lost aboard the Quest,” said Gen. James N. Mattis, U.S. Central Command Commander in a news release.

Two pirates died during the confrontation and U.S. forces found the remains of two other pirates already dead aboard the vessel. Thirteen pirates were captured and detained, along with two already in custody. A total of 19 pirates were involved in the hijacking.

The remains of the four Americans were taken aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, as were the 15 pirates in custody. There is no word yet on where the pirates will be taken for trial. They could go to Kenya or they could come back to the U.S. There is a precedent for both.

The yacht Quest was hijacked on Friday off the coast of Oman and U.S. forces had been closely monitoring the vessel.

Unlike most pirate incidents, these pirates boarded the Quest directly from their mother ship, rather than using faster skiffs. The mother ship remains free.

Vice Admiral Mark Fox, Commander of Centcom's Naval Forces, explained the timeline of events during a press briefing with Pentagon reporters. According to Fox, there was "absolutely no warning" before the hostage situation turned deadly.

On Monday two pirates boarded the USS Sterett (one of four U.S. Naval ships monitoring the situation) to conduct negotiations for the release of the American hostages. They stayed on board overnight and it's unclear if any ransom was offered before the killing took place.

At 8:00 am local time Tuesday morning a rocket propelled grenade was fired at the Sterett from pirates on board the Quest. The shot missed, but immediately after gunfire erupted inside the cabin of the Quest.

"Several pirates appeared on deck and moved up to the bow with their hands in the air in surrender," Fox said. That's when SOF approached on small boats and boarded the yacht.

When U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) soldiers -- from a classified Navy SEALS unit -- reached the yacht, they found two pirates had already been killed by small arms fire. As they went below deck there was an exchange of fire that killed one pirate. The other pirate was killed by an SOF member who used a knife in close combat, Vice Adm. Fox said.

The SOF found some of the Americans still alive, but all four soon died of their wounds. Vice Adm. Fox called it the deadliest pirate incident to date.

"We did everything we could," said a senior military official. "But I don't think our guys would see this as a good outcome."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the killings "deplorable." She said in a statement that the killings underscored the need for international cooperation on fighting the scourge of piracy in waters off the Horn of Africa.

She urged international partners to provide material, financial and logistical support to an African peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the country the pirates use as the launching point of their attacks.

The organizers of an international yacht race called the Blue Water Rally said the Quest had been taking part in the race but left it Feb. 15 to chart an independent course from India to Oman.

The Quest is owned by Scott and Jean Adam, a couple from California. The two other Americans on board were Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, of Seattle, Washington.

At the Seattle Singles Yacht Club, where Riggle and Macay were well known, Joe Grande said the two were "great sailors, good people. They were doing what they wanted to do, but that's small comfort in the face of this."

The Adams have been sailing the world with a yacht full of Bibles since 2004. The hijacking of their yacht came two days after a Somali pirate was sentenced to 33 years in prison by a New York court for the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama. That case ended when Navy sharpshooters killed two pirates holding the ship's captain.

Pirates have increased attacks off the coast of East Africa in recent years despite an international flotilla of warships dedicated to protecting vessels and stopping the pirate assaults. Multimillion-dollar ransoms are fueling the trade, and the prices for releasing a ship and hostages have risen sharply.

Pirates currently hold 30 ships and more than 660 hostages, not counting the attack against the Quest. Before this incident there were less than 10 pirate related deaths this year.

The best-known case of Westerners being held hostage in Somalia was that of Paul and Rachel Chandler, a British couple held for 388 days. The two, who were captured while sailing in their private yacht, were released in November.

The Adams -- who are members of the Marina del Rey Yacht Club in Marina del Rey, Calif. -- run a Bible ministry, according to their website, and have been distributing Bibles to schools and churches in remote villages in areas including the Fiji Islands, Alaska, New Zealand, Central America and French Polynesia.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/22/americans-aboard-yacht-captured-pirates-reportedly-killed/?test=latestnews#

The Coward in Chief Obama should be held liable and responsible for this slaughter. This ship should have been boarded by US Forces immediately. This BS of just following is ludacris. We had the resources to handle the situation and waiting until shots were fired to move in is stupid. Hell, they even fired an RPG at the US Ship and nothing was done.

He should be charged in all four deaths.

What we really need to do is pull hot hit and run raids in Somalia along with firebombing cities but that is my opinion. On top of that American merchant ships need to keep armed soldiers on board each ship so they don't violate BS international (COUGH COUGH) law. Likewise we need to really get hard core on Somali pirates. We see a suspect vessel we board it, and if they fire on us we just sink them and kill all hands on board and dump the bodies in the nearest city minus their heads and right hands!!

Somalia is a dump. Ethiopia doesn't want it! Its the people there who make it a pit of despair. If they really wanted law and order they would have it by now. Instead all they have is tribal in fighting, Islam, and ignorance. This is a case that they need to be "educated" with a real harsh *** whipping followed by some real classroom education for the survivors. Then maybe they will clean up their own act.

Obama has no balls to fight a war. He has NO Balls for a fight. He wants to be like Jimmy Carter. The difference is he got Afghanistan dumped in his lap. Oh how I want to run the situation in Afghanistan. It involves the use of a lot of pork. Oh just starving some Islamic militants and offering them nothing but pork to eat...

The ones that don't break, shoot in the head! Then defile them WITH pork publicly! And any Taliban caught. Well, think of Deliverance but instead of a crazy pair of Hill Billys a big fat horney boar will do nicely instead for a public display of defilement SO COMPLETE anyone thinking of joining will be terrified of the idea of us catching them enough to discourage them from joining!!! A little porcine passion on youtube maybe. Oh the things about Islam I could take advantage of and psychologically terrorize them so badly their terrorists would become scared shitteles of us! Especially if we caught some and gave them a pork love fest interrogation. Nothing like Speed, humiliation, sleep deprivation, and defilement to loosen people's tongues...

Oh we need to get Machiavellian badly in the middle east, especially on Iran! God that side of the world is such an embarrassing armpit of humanity! What is so hard for people to get their act together?

has anyone here actually WORKED with special ops or studied their actual procedures,,,is it plausible that EVERY special ops situation around the country is FIRST run through the President?


(shrugs) I dont know. I will ask my brother who trained with the SEALS and was a naval captain,,,,,,,but something tells me it doesnt quite happen like that,,,,something tells me beyond authorizing vessels (financial investments) to take on special circumstances(like a downed cruise ship), that actual TERROR situations that are part of the JOB of the military have procedures in place to handle those situations,,and that sometimes they fail, but usually they work

Arent they called SPECIAL OPS because THEY are expected to figure out what to do while the President handles other things?


as to the rest, we cant police the whole world, we can be weary of places that are and are not safe and react accordingly,,,I wouldnt imagine the middle east is considered a SAFE place to be yachting right now,,,, we could ban travel there or we could send operations out to protect everyone who wants to take the risk,,I doubt the first would go over well and I doubt we have man power to handle the second and still 'protect' our own country,,,

presidents set policy though...

food for thought.

When the Somali Coast Guard went out of business foreign dredges scraped the life out of Somali fishing grounds. It was not that long before the piracy got going.

We are trillions of dollars in debt. Teachers are being fired, schools are closing and unions are being gutted (conveniently not the governors wages and extras, etc) and we are shipping money to other countries to help them? And helping out Americans to stupid to pay attention to REALLY bad areas of the world?! Their own fault and they paid the price for it. Its called personal responsibility.

I agree.
They should never have been anywhere near there.
Really, except for making a political issue, don't know why this even qualifies as news.

How many Illegals in the US raped or killed someone last night?

Jesus Willing! I'm in total agreement with you! How did that happen?

Equus, That is a great new profile photo. Love it!

Guess I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

I haven't noticed any teachers being fired from the private schools. I have not noticed any private sector unions being 'gutted'. I do not understand why they close schools... My 'levi' locally could support a couple of schools. (and it increases by 5. mills every few years. I know places where the home owner pays the equivlant of 2 or three months mortage payments to school levis - not to mention the MEGAMILLIONS ripoffs).

What we need is someone to re-start the use of 'privateers' against the pirates...

Kinda hard to seize a vessel that is accompanied by an armed an agressive private security vessel with out the constraints of a 'national' policy of 'negotiation'.

Hell, the last boat the Russians took they loaded the pirates on it and sunk the boat and shot the survivors in the water! THAT IS HOW TO DEAL WITH PIRATES! The Russians get total street creds with me!

These people worked their whole life, bought their own boat and had a dream to travel the world. But yeah, it's easy to blame all of Americas problems on them eh? They were people of "god" (which I am not) and I'm sure the last thing they thought were they were treading on bad water and were going to die. Seriously, get a life. Quit being so harsh on people for doing things that they love doing and paying the price. It wasn't their fault. Can you not mourn for the loss of life in a senseless act of violence?

Sure.
It just isn't "News" worthy.

We are all human, and do things every single day that we like doing. Driving your car every single day is dangerous. So if you died should we blame your driving on it? I would hope that people can see that these people were loved and mourn the loss of life. It is senseless no matter where they were!!!

driving your car is dangerous, probably not as dangerous as driving it 100mph down a one way street though, I would probably consider the latter person more careless in their decision and probalby not be AS Shocked by their death as the former, although loved ones will mourn regardless of the careful or careless nature of the deceased

I think people sometimes take unnecessary risks and sometimes they take risks that are WORTH the elevated risks,,,they probably knew they were taking this chance and felt it worth it

and of course, they will be missed,,,

Isn't it.

Until this point I was not aware that a carrier battle group was in that area...

Gateway to the Suez. Right were it can do some damage to some pirates...

Reckon the President is making good policy.

Now if he just has enough assets to put another one back into the med we will be sitting pretty.

If, I remember correctly, last year we were supposed to have placed troops in Somalia to help stabilize.
Wonder whatever came of that?
Reckon they got lost like the troops that were supposed to be headed to our southern border?

It was 2009.

US Troops Attack Somalia
US Confirms Invasion, Won't Say Why
by Jason Ditz, September 14, 2009

Following confirmation by the French military that they definitely weren’t in the process of invading Somalia, the United States military is now confirming that it is, in fact, American forces that are pouring into the southern portion of the country in a helicopter-backed invasion.

US military officials confirmed to the Associated Press today that forces from the US Joint Special Operations Command had invaded the lawless African nation, and were the ones responsible for the attack on the tiny village near Barawa this morning that was the first staging ground of the attack.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/14/us-troops-attack-somalia/

Ummmmm, when a high percentage of our shipping comes out of that area the only smart thing is to put money and resources to protect it.

Remember that comment when gasoline goes up to $10.00 per gallon because of having to find an alternate and longer shipping route.

The thing is, most humans with a heart will hope that others will feel the same way as they do, in kindness and being civilized. I really think that these people thought they would be okay. It is still no excuse for their lives to be ended for selfishness and greed through theft. We see it every day in America and it is all horrible. Unless humans can find what really matters in life, which isn't monetary. Then this will continue.

In total agreement.