Navy SEALs Carry Out Daring Rescue
Jan. 25, 2012
United States Navy SEALs have carried out a daring rescue of two foreign aid workers who had been kidnapped in Somalia in October 2011. The SEALs parachuted into Somalia to carry out the overnight operation. After a shootout that left nine of the captors dead, the SEALs freed the hostages, an American woman and a Danish man, uninjured. The SEALs and hostages left Somalia by helicopter for Djibouti to Camp Lemonnier, the primary base of operations for the U.S. military in the Horn of Africa. Somalia, which has had no functioning central government since 1991 and is essentially lawless, is the base for numerous kidnappers and pirates. U.S. Department of Defense officials estimate that some 150 people are currently being held hostage there, primarily merchant marine sailors from ships seized for ransom by pirates.
Members of the United States Coast Guard capture suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden, north of Somalia. Somali pirates have attacked many ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Eric L. Beauregard, U.S. Navy
A Defense Department spokesperson confirmed that the elite SEAL team that carried out the Somali mission, SEAL Team Six, is the same unit that in May 2011 killed Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden was the head of the al Qa’ida terrorist organization and the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
