Somali Pirates Fired Grenade, Then Killed 4 Americans, US Says

WASHINGTON -- A surprise attack on a U.S. warship preceded gunfire that killed four Americans in what is now the deadliest pirate incident to date, according to a senior U.S. military official.

On Friday, a Danish naval ship spotted a U.S.-flagged yacht, Quest, that had been taken over by 19 Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean and alerted U.S. authorities. U.S. Central Command sent four warships to tail the ship and began negotiations with the pirates.

"This morning, with no warning, is when the rocket-propelled grenade was fired, and the gunfire erupted onboard the yacht," Vice Adm. Mark Fox, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, told reporters at the Pentagon, calling in from his headquarters in Bahrain.

A U.S. special operations team then boarded the ship, killing two pirates while clearing the vessel. When they found the four American hostages, they had already been shot. Despite being given first aid, all four Americans died of their wounds.

Two pirates were already dead when U.S. forces boarded the pirated vessel, and another two were killed by the U.S. special operations team, one in a knife fight and another with a gun. The four Americans appear to have been killed by gunfire from their captors before U.S. forces boarded the ship.

At the time of the grenade attack, two pirates were aboard one of the U.S. warships conducting negotiations. The idea was never to get to "a point where we had gunfire," Fox said.

Fox told reporters there was no warning of the attack and apparently no provocation. He declined to characterize the ongoing negotiations with the pirates, other than to say they were determined to take the yacht and hostages into Somali waters.

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The four killed include the owners of the yacht, Jean and Scott Adam, a married couple from California, and their friends Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle from Washington state.

The remaining 15 pirates are now being held by the U.S. military. Fox said the pirates would be brought to a "judicial process" to be held accountable for their actions, but did not say whether they would be brought to the U.S. to face charges.

The U.S. military believes a pirate "mothership" was used to launch the smaller boat used by the pirates on the attack on the yacht.

Last month, a U.S. federal judge sentenced a Somali man to 34 years in prison for his involvement in a pirate attack in the Indian Ocean.