U.S. ship's crew docks with stories of heroism

MOMBASA, Kenya - The first fragments of crew members' dramatic battle to regain control of their U.S.-flagged ship from Somalian pirates emerged last night as the Maersk Alabama finally docked in this Kenyan port.

From the ship's deck, exhausted crewmen shouted snippets of stories of heroism, and one pumped his fist in the air in jubilation as they approached the dock in the darkness.

But the men's relief was tempered by the knowledge that their captain, Richard Phillips, was hundreds of miles away off the coast of Somalia, drifting with desperate pirates in a lifeboat that has run out of fuel. Yesterday was his fourth day in captivity; a day earlier, Phillips tried to escape by jumping overboard but was recaptured immediately.

Details were sketchy, but Phillips reportedly surrendered himself to the pirates Wednesday to secure the safety of the crew.

With a heavy security cordon in place at the Mombasa port, and a screen of shipping containers put up to protect crew members' privacy, access was limited. But a couple of the 19 crew members spoke to reporters, and told of other heroic acts.

"Hey, this guy's a hero!" one said, indicating the ship's chief engineer, ATM Reza. He described how Reza managed to lure one of the pirates into a trap in the engine room. Details of the saga were unclear as reporters shouted questions, and it was not known whether the pirate whom Reza nabbed later managed to flee with the captain.

In another attack yesterday in the ocean off Somalia, a lawless country that has had no stable government since 1991, pirates hijacked a tugboat and were holding its mostly Italian 16-person crew as hostages, maritime officials in Kenya said. The tugboat is Italian-flagged, but its ownership was unclear.

The latest attack brought the current total of pirated ships to more than 20, with about 300 hostages.

As the U.S. drama continued, family members of the four pirates and elders from their hometowns gathered yesterday at the Somalian coast in an attempt to help end the standoff between the four pirates holding Phillips and the U.S. destroyer Bainbridge, which is standing nearby.

"They wanted to free the captain without ransom and arrange to take the pirates back home safely," said Abdi Gaariye Samatar, who is part of a pirate gang in the Somalian port city of Eyl.

"The elders are worried about the American warships surrounding the pirates," he added.

A maritime expert in Kenya, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the family members and elders spoke with U.S. negotiators and sought a written assurance that the Americans would permit them to bring the pirates back to Somalia for prosecution rather than be detained by the United States.

"The Americans refused," the expert said. "They said they would not guarantee that the elders could take the boys."

John Reinhart, president and chief executive officer of Maersk Line, said the Maersk Alabama's crew would not be allowed to leave the ship and reunite with their families until an FBI investigation was complete.

"Because of the pirate attack, the FBI has informed us that this ship is a crime scene," he said in a short media briefing from the company's headquarters in Norfolk, Va., yesterday afternoon.

Crew members will be given telephones to call their families, but Reinhart said it was unclear how long the FBI questioning would take.

He said he spoke with some of the crew members and they expressed concern about the captain.

"One of the things they asked was to make sure we do everything we can to bring home the captain," he said.

Despite intense interest in hearing how the crew retook control of the vessel, and whether Phillips volunteered to board the lifeboat with the pirates in return for his men's safety, Reinhart said he could not provide any specifics of the investigation or the status of the negotiations because such details "could pose a risk to our primary purpose," which was Phillips' safety and safe return.

The relief was palpable among some crew members after the ship approached the dock at Mombasa's port and a mooring rope was thrown.

"Are you guys all from the States?" one crew member asked the crowd of waiting journalists. "Really?"

"When I get home I'm going to hug my wife and kids, my boys."

And the first meal? "Steak!"

Many of the crew, wearing blue overalls and blue hard hats, appeared exhausted. A bus was brought to the ship, ready to take the crew away.

Bernard Odemba, the pilot who brought the ship into the port, said the crew was clearly relieved but also worried for the captain. He said the pirates had done some damage to winches on the ship.

Analysts and diplomats see the key to the Somalian piracy problem as resolving that country's long-running civil strife.

"It's a bit difficult to patrol the sea, it's so vast," one diplomat said. "It's a land-based problem. If we can get the political situation in Somalia squared away, they won't have a base to operate from."