Somali pirates defied international naval powers today to keep an American ship captain hostage on a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean after their first seizure of US citizens.
The gunmen briefly hijacked the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabamafreighter yestersday, but the 20 American crew retook control after a confrontation far out at sea, where pirates have captured five other vessels in a week.
Four gang members were holding the captain, Richard Phillips, on the ship's lifeboat after he apparently volunteered to be a hostage for the sake of his crew.
US Vice President Joe Biden said the US government was working "around the clock" on the crisis. But President Barack Obama's administration generally had little public comment on the standoff, with delicate negotiations under way to try to secure the captain's release.
The saga added to a long list of challenges, both at home and abroad, faced by Mr Obama less than three months after he took office.
The Pentagon said it was seeking a peaceful solution but was not ruling out any option in freeing Mr Phillips.
"What I understand is he offered himself as the hostage to keep the rest of the crew safe," Mr Phillips' sister-in-law, Gina Coggio, told the ABC network.
"That is what he would do, that's just who he is, and his responsibility as the captain."
The captain's capture and the attack on his ship has once again focused world attention on Somali piracy, as happened last year when gunmen seized a Saudi supertanker with $100 million of oil on board, and a Ukrainian ship with 33 tanks.
The attacks have been happening for years but reached unprecedented levels in 2008.
Pirates are currently holding 18 vessels with a total of 267 hostages, many of them from the Philippines, according to the Mombasa, Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme.
Reached via satellite phone, the pirates on the lifeboat sounded desperate as they watched a US warship and other foreign naval vessels close to them.
"We are surrounded by warships and don't have time to talk," one said. "Please pray for us."
The Danish-owned freighter's operator said Mr Phillips was unharmed and securing his safe return was the firm's priority.
The US warship Bainbridgearrived on the scene before dawn and was in contact with the lifeboat, it added.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it had been called in to assist, and its negotiators were fully engaged in resolving what Attorney General Eric Holder called the first act of piracy against a US vessel "in hundreds of years".
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the lifeboat now appeared to be out of fuel. An East African maritime group said the Maersk Alabamawas on its way to Mombasa and would reach there in a couple of days.
The attack was the latest in a sharp escalation in piracy in the waters off lawless Somalia, which has has been mired in civil conflict and without effective central control for 18 years.
Heavily armed sea gangs hijacked dozens of vessels last year and extracted millions of dollars in ransoms. The Saudi and Ukrainian boats fetched about $3 million each.
The phenomenon has disrupted shipping in the strategic Gulf of Aden and busy Indian Ocean waterways, delayed delivery of food aid for drought-hit East Africa, increased insurance costs and made some firms route cargoes round South Africa instead of through the Suez Canal.
The upsurge in attacks has come despite an unprecedented international naval effort against the pirates, including ships from Europe, the United States, China, Japan and others, which are patrolling off Somalia, mainly in the Gulf of Aden.
Reuters