Friday, January 21, 2011

Afternoon Happy Thoughts...

Brad_in_ma sends in the feel-good story of the day:

S. Korea navy 'kills Somali pirates, saves crew'
SEOUL (AFP) – South Korean navy commandos on Friday stormed a ship hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, rescuing all the 21 crew and killing eight pirates, military officials said.

The SEAL special forces boarded the South Korean ship before dawn, freeing all the hostages and killing the pirates in cabin-to-cabin battles, they said. Five other pirates were captured.

While it's not perfect - they should only have left one pirate alive IMHO - it's still a damn sight better than previous efforts:

The hijacking came two months after a supertanker belonging to the same company, Samho Shipping, was released after being held for seven months.

The 300,000-tonne Samho Dream and its 24 crew were freed only after the pirates were paid a ransom reported as a record $9 million.

Gee. Imagine that. One never pays the Danegeld only once.

That is all.

3 comments:

Old NFO said...

Yep, and I'll 'bet' they quit targeting the ROK ships for a while.

TOTWTYTR said...

From everything I've read about the ROK military, they are people you don't want to f*** with. Apparently, the government of the ROK isn't especially interested in what the International Community thinks about their response to piracy.

Raptor said...

"They should only have left one pirate alive..."

Wait a tic, are we dealing with South Korean SEALs or Reavers?

Firefly FTW!