South Korea Storms Hijacked Ship, Rescues Hostages

This is the first all out assault by any modern Navy against a large commercial vessel hijacked by Somali pirates.

At dawn, South Korean special forces packed into a small boat approached a hijacked freighter in the Arabian Sea. Commandos scrambled up a ladder onto the ship, aboard which Somali pirates were armed with AK assault rifles and anti-tank missiles. A South Korean destroyer and hovering Lynx helicopter provided covering fire.

When Friday's operation ended five hours later, 21 hostages had been rescued, eight Somali pirates killed and five assailants captured. Pockmarks from artillery fire blanketed the ship's bridge. One of the hostages was wounded, but all were alive — a remarkable ending for a risky rescue.

The difference here is that the pirates supposedly had control of the crew, which is why the Captain of the vessel was shot during the raid. The details of the incident are still developing, with a few news reports containing contrary information.

Either way, what South Korea has done here is very impressive no matter how one looks at it. Only the French have made similar armed assaults at sea against ships pirated with hostages, and they haven't always gone well.

So far we know 8 pirates were killed, the South Korean destroyer involved was the Choi Young, and the President himself made the call. A US Navy helicopter reportedly evacuated the ships Captain after he was shot, but his wounds are not considered life threatening.

Update: More from the New York Times.

On Tuesday, a South Korean destroyer, the Choi Young, pursued the Samho Jewelry and saw pirates aboard the freighter leave the ship to hijack a nearby Mongolian vessel, according to Yonhap.

A small, fast-moving boat and a helicopter were dispatched by the South Korean destroyer to rescue the Mongolian ship, sparking a brief gun battle with the pirates aboard the vessel. The battle left three South Korean soldiers injured and an unspecified number of pirates were missing and presumed dead after that exchange, said Col. Lee, the military spokesman.

A standoff between the South Korean naval destroyer and the pirates aboard the Samho Jewelry ensued until Friday morning’s rescue, with the South Korean military sending messages ordering the pirates to surrender.

South Korea’s military decided to storm the Samho Jewelry after it was determined that the pirates had wearied of the days-long standoff, according to Yonhap. Warning shots were fired by the destroyer as elite forced approached the cargo vessel. The battle between South Korean soldiers and the pirates, who were armed with AK-47s, heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, began just before 5 a.m. local time and lasted five hours.

This is noteworthy because the details make the entire engagement sound even more impressive. If Samho Jewelry was being used as a mothership, and South Korea engaged the pirates to prevent the hijacking of the Mongolian ship - and took three casualties during that action, consider for a moment that the South Korean Navy had already taken casualties before attempting the rescue of the Samho Jewelry.

I'm not sure every country would see their own folks wounded in an action, then choose to do something even more daring. Taking the action to storm the ship after taking wounded wasn't necessarily the call of the CO of the destroyer, indeed it was probably someones call higher in the chain of command - perhaps the civilian side. Things could have gone very wrong when storming the ship, the political risks taken were not trivial. It is something to think about, and something I'm sure the DPRK and China will think about.