Super Sarkozy greets hostages after pirate triumph

France is pleased with the stylish way that its navy and special forces handled the seizure of the Ponant, the big French superyacht that was boarded by pirates off Somalia 10 days ago. Six of the 20 or so pirates were captured by helicopter-borne French commandos as they made an overland getaway with part of the ransom.

The operation, directed by President Sarkozy, was well run and it shows how France can put well-equipped forces into action on the high seas at long distance. The 30 crew, most of them young French citizens, were released on Friday and are flying back to Paris tonight on a military Airbus. Sarkozy is going to the airport to greet them. There were no passengers. The captured Somali bandits -- said to be former fishermen -- are being brought back to Paris to stand trial.

The armed forces have been putting out their story and le Figaro today has details of their intrepid exploit. The pirates, for example, brought two goats on board for milk but they spent a lot of their time draining the ship's copious bars. One pirate disappeared overboard in the night, apparently drunk.

I don't want to dampen the good news, but no-one is asking how much the whole thing cost or wondering about the ransom, said to be 2.5 million dollars, that was paid for the crew's freedom.

[le Ponant (an old word for west)]

France pulled out all the stops when the three-masted Ponant, which normally carries 65 passengers in luxury, was seized on its way towards the Mediterranean from a stint cruising around the Seychelles islands.

The bandits appeared on small speedboats and fired at the vessel with AK-47 assault weapons. Captain Patrick Marchesseau [in picture] said he decided not to resist in order to protect the crew. "We didn't have a choice", he said.

Paris sent in a navy aviso -- slightly smaller than a corvette -- that was patrolling nearby. The ship shadowed the Ponant all week. France flew marine commandos from their base in Djibouti who parachuted into the water by the naval vessel. They included the admiral who commands the force. A big Atlantique 2 maritime patrol plane kept everything under surveillance. The Jean Bart, a frigate, and the Jeanne d'Arc, a naval training ship, arrived on the scene with helicopters after the Ponant was anchored off Puntland, Somalia's eastern tip. By the end of the week 60 assault troops were ready on the spot, some flown out from Brittany. 

Marchesseau, whose usual duties include entertaining his well-off customers at the captain's table, spent the week calming his nervous captors. He managed to communicate privately by inserting fast snatches of French into the English language radio conversations that the pirates were listening to.

In Marseilles, the ship's owners -- friends of Sarkozy --  negotiated the ransom with the help of experts from the secret services. Sarkozy, who had managed hostage situations as interior minister, received the families of the crew and told them "Let me handle this. I'm used to it." President Abdullah Yusuf Ahmed gave him authority to operate inside Somali waters, asking him to "get rid of those guys for me".

The pirates were told that they would be attacked if they tried to take their captives to the shore. Things became complicated when rival gangs on shore began fighting over shares of the future ransom. On Friday, commandos handed the bags of money over to pirates in two small boats. When the hostages were safe, Sarko ordered the military to go for the bandits but without force that would endanger civilians.

They spotted the six leaving in a 4x4 truck. A commando sniper fired a MacMillan 12.7 mm rifle from a pursuing helicopter to smash the engine of their jeep with a single shot. They could have used a rocket and blown them all to pieces but chose minimum force, the military said. Three helicopters landed and took the men prisoner without a fight.

A few conclusions: Sarkozy believes he struck a blow for the law and he is using the incident to press at the United Nations for international anti-pirate operations in dangerous zones such as the Gulf of Aden. Super Sarko handled the week-long affair with unusual discretion. It was the kind of operation that he enjoys. He first made a national name for himself in May 1993 when, as Mayor of Neuilly and a new junior minister, he risked his life to negotiate with a deranged man with a bomb. He had taken small children hostage in a Neuilly nursery school. Police shot him dead after Sarko managed to get most of the children out.   

The pirates' ransom was paid from private funds, according to the Elysée palace. We don't know how much was retrieved. The cost to us tax-payers of the elaborate week-long operation must be pretty steep. Hundreds of men, three or four warships, five helicopters, and transport flights to and from France were involved. The admiring Figaro made an uncritical allusion to the cost: "The military are not unhappy to be able to show that they know how to put to good use the resources that the tax-payer provides for them." Then there will be the judicial investigation and trial. That will be followed by a big bill for the pirates' long residence in the relative comfort of French prisons. 

Comments

[john o'doe]

I liked the bit about the fancy-dress equator-crossing party where the captain was dressed up as Long John Silver the day before the real pirates struck.

[azloon]

Commando operation/ransom ??

i didn't know commandos paid ransoms. i thought the idea of commandos was to avoid having to pay ransoms.

obviously a hybrid operation.

[dot king]

"Let me handle this. I'm used to it." (Article CB)
In yesterday's "Le Monde" the quotation was: "On a affaire à des malfrats. Ils veulent du fric, on va le leur donner, et après, c'est mon affaire."

(I would have said - were I to find myself in this situation - unlikely - "on va leur en donner".)

Nonetheless, a happy endng, if costly.
One thing that's not been mentioned at all - what happens to the boat?
Do the pirates hijack the boat for the valuables on board, or for the boat itself? And where is it (sorry Daniel) where is SHE now?

[Shawmut]

This, dear Gentle Readers, is what we used to have keel-haulng for. I myself favour flinging the pirates overboard as fish food. The French, on the other hand, still have Madame La Guillotine, probably languishing amongst cobwebs somewhere, and that will also do quite nicely. It will be money well spent if the message gets across that Piracy Doesn't Pay.

[Daniel Strohl]

Dot,

SHE :)) is heading for Djibouti, under escort of the French navy.

Normally, pirates are only interested in the valuables on board and, of course, in a ransom when this is feasible.

"They could have used a rocket and blown them all to pieces" (Charles)

Yes, along with the money bags :))

[Juliette]

Not to rain on their parade, but there's a question to be asked here, about how people become pirates in general. These were former fishermen. You don't go from fishing to killing with a snpa of fingers, you'd have to lose your job for that. Having a boat, but no more fish would do it. This is how a good deal of pirates appear. Why do they have no fish left? Because Europe (and especially France and Spain) are buying outrageous quotas from poor governments, pretty much empty the seas there, and leave them with no betetr and fatser way of making money than piracy. At no point during the entire Ponant ordeal has any TV or newspaper bothered going into the depth of piracy.
What people will remember of this is a cool boat and super-Sarko, and not the real lesson of it. Now, when did this already happen?

[richard jones]

A rather strange extrapolation of the piracy event.
The deputy Greek Foreign Minister (Big Dora the minister herself can do nothing until Makedonia changes its name)has, according to E(llenic)T(V)2 today told Sarkozy that Greece would be prepared to support international efforts to placate the waters off Somalia.
The Greek interest is large numbers of Somali illegals who seek asylum in Italy (old colonial power I suppose). They use Islamic conveyors based in Cyprus or Lebanon but end up - officially - in Greece first, where legally they must demand asylum. Greece cannot afford these poor people from Chaos.
The same TV program also mentioned Franco-Ellenic discussions on the 'flat rate' experimental tax system that the EU is interested in.
So perhaps we will see a lot more of the generally productive (for the Balkans as a whole) interchanges between France and Greece.
Finally, I worked for Cable and Wireless in Aden and can tell you two things. First, 900 men of the type normally caserned in Djibouti, fighting in Halmand would be a big plus for the Western powers and secondly I can never remember other than anarchy in Somalia.

[rocket]

Fishermen! They kicked some fishermen's butt!

[Francois D]

I guess that all will be done so that they will arrive just before TV 8 pm news, with Super Sarko in bottom of the plane. And after a good night with Carla...(le repos du guerrier)

I think that he should perform some training courses commando, which will allow him, next time, to go with the admiral.

The main ship school navy (which is at the end of its lifetime) is called the "Jeanne of Arc"... It appears that Sarko, in London, promised to find another name for the next one. But it's a secular tradition to name it "Jeanne d'Arc".

Last question: you d'not specify damages by goats in the boat. That makes me think a slogan to promote (human) breast-feeding: it's the best adapted, the best preserved and the best presented. Cautious alcohol may pass through in.

[Christine]

CB: "France is pleased with the stylish way that its navy and special forces handled the seizure of the Ponant"
I don't know about "France", but I did not meet any "pleased" colleagues today, all were rather ironic. And by the way, the first question raised was how much this whole thing cost. No one obviously in the media had the idea to ask but "people", (maybe another "France"?) actually do ask.
By the way, this reminds me of the famous "les caisses sont vides": no journalist heard it at the time, but all the rest of France heard it very well, so well that the media had to catch up on it... So I guess, or hope, the right questions will be raised in the press eventually.
And after reading in your post that the yacht's owner is a friend of Sarkozy, I now understand why it was worth it, at least for certain people.

[Daniel Strohl]

Rocket,

"Fishermen! They kicked some fishermen's butt!"

The "fishermen" had Kalachnikovs and may be RPG's too. Dangerous brand of fishermen...

However, if they are dangerous, they are no good at economics. Otherwise, they would have required a ransom in Euros instead of US dollars :))

[rocket]

Daniel, Charles et al

"They could have used a rocket and blown them all to pieces" (Charles)

You mean "smoke em" like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEb8tifRRjg

Not suitable for sensitive souls!

[Romain]

"The military are not unhappy to be able to show that they know how to put to good use the resources that the tax-payer provides for them." CB.
First, let's give a patt in the back to our military for a job well done !
I believe there is a debate in U.K. on what to do with pirates, because if you handed them over to Somalia, they would fall under the "Charia" laws, which is against human rights, and therefore they could rightfully seek asylum in U.K.; furthermore it would encourage pirates activity since it was a sure way to become a U.K. resident. lol, that is too much !
Why not fling the pirates overboard as fish food, as suggested by Shawmut?
The military resources were well employed in a clear case, with little extra costs.
I would not say the same about the resources deployed on the Betancourt affair. That is a purely Latino-Columbian matter, and tax payer is wondering why on earth France would spend so much time and money on it.
It must me some kind of Dr. Jones syndrom, developped by Sarkozy since the Neuilly kindergarden crisis.

[rocket]

Dot

(I would have said - were I to find myself in this situation - unlikely - "on va leur en donner".)

Moi, j'aurais dit "on vas leur donner pour leur argent" and then "smoked em" as in video above.

Then Sarkozy could have said DO NOT! I REPEAT DO NOT F**k WITH FRANCE.

I'm sure he subsequently would have had a REALLY good night with Carla.

As many of you recently know Hillary Clinton said she came under sniper fire when she went to Bosnia in 1996 I believe it was. This claim by the record of video taken at the time was proven false but one reader had this to say a couple of weeks back in the WSJ that I thought was an indication of some politicians egos.

"What struck me as the best commentary on the Bosnia story came from a poster called GI Joe who wrote in to a news blog: "Actually Mrs. Clinton was too modest. I was there and saw it all. When Mrs. Clinton got off the plane the tarmac came under mortar and machine gun fire. I was blown off my tank and exposed to enemy fire. Mrs. Clinton without regard to her own safety dragged me to safety, jumped on the tank and opened fire, killing 50 of the enemy." Soon a suicide bomber appeared, but Mrs. Clinton stopped the guards from opening fire. "She talked to the man in his own language and got him [to] surrender. She found that he had suffered terribly as a result of policies of George Bush. She defused the bomb vest herself." Then she turned to his wounds. "She stopped my bleeding and saved my life. Chelsea donated the blood."

Now this guy is a real hero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Skutnik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkZADajKIsQ

[Blendi Progri]

President Sarkozy couldn’t be more right to ‘to press at the United Nations for international anti-pirate operations in dangerous zones’ as the piratery is on the increase.

I`m not a boat captain, but from the news I know that the coast of Somalia ( Especially) is full of pirates. What was an experienced Capitan doing there?

This rescue operation went well but if maritime piratery if left to continue unchallenged, next time the pirates maybe wont ask for a ransom, just take what is on the ship and kill the hostages. A proactive approach is needed.

Few days ago there was an article saying that Royal Navy were asked to be careful with pirates. As attacking them may breach their Human Rights (pirates H. Rights) and if they capture pirates - they may ask for Asylum. Incredible!

[christopher muir]

The Ponant's master has given Sarko a free kick. Juliette is correct to link the pirates' frightening behaviour to economics. The recent warnings by the IMF and others about the looming world food shortages' consequences signal that problems (such as violence) are about to occur in increasingly frequent patterns.

It would seem to be foolhardy to go yachting close to Aden or Somalia without military escort - there have been countless stories about the prevalence of Somali sea-bound outlaws for many years. Anybody want to join me on a cruise around Haiti?

[rocket]

Daniel

I give credit to the French military for their rapid intervention on land and I am very happy for this outcome. But let's not go overboard on this.(chuckle)

These guys were not hardened terrorists. These guys were amateurs.

PS - You're right! They should have asked for euros. At the current exchange rate they would be winners.

[Romain]

Anybody want to join me on a cruise around Haiti? (Chistopher Muir).
How do the Malacca Strait and the Gulf of Siam sound ? Pirates there are really equipped with the latest technology and weaponry.
Daniel & Rocket
A ransom in US dollars, Tss Tss! No wonder those bloody idiots got caught.

[Robert Marchenoir]

Yes, Juliette. It's obviously France's fault if pirates attack its boats. How on earth did Sarkozy not realize this?

France (and the West) are always to blame for all the evil in the world. (Strangely enough, George Bush is not responsible for this one.)

Obviously we should subsidize these poor "fishermen", instead of stupidly shooting at them.

I suggest you begin, and write them a check out of your own account.

[christopher muir]

Romain,

Swapping hostages and their vessel for dollars or even euros certainly shows some naivete regarding currency markets etc. But let's wait a little and see - a hostage will soon be worth his/her weight in gold.

[Romain]

Fortunately, those Somali pirates look like the one's in Asterix and Obelix cartoons. There is a big black pirate look-out, on top of the mizen mast hune, who sets the alarm :"les gaugo... les gaugo... les Gaulois!". Inevitably, the pirate ship gets wrecked each and every time. It would be worth for the UN to invest a bit more in surveillance.

[Mauvezin]

> Juliette
C'est evident que s'ils sont devenus des pirates c'est à cause de la mondialisation...de pauvres victimes economiques !!!!
____________________
> Christine
Fallait-il donc les laisser crever pour faire des economies !??
La Marine est sur zone donc c'est de son ressort !
__________________________
> à tous les anglosaxons
N'etait-ce point un commando britannique qui s'est fait prendre sans riposter par des iraniens sous le nez et à la barbe d'une frégate britannique ?
A leur retour ces "héros" ont écrit un bouquin relatant leur cruelle détention !!!?

[azloon]

are commandos who show up with suitcases full of money really commandos? we'd call them bankers/negotiators.

europeans seem much more willing to 'buy off' terrorists than other countries, including the u.s.

you can be sure these pirates now believe they've discovered the 'mother lode,' and will back out on the high seas looking for french vessels.

great risk/reward ratio.

[David]

It's a picture of the Randonneurs à Saint-Tropez, isn't it? I'm sure that guy on the far right is Benoit Poelvoorde... ;0)

LOL/MDR etc.

[dot king]

Azloon, re the ransom, it hasn't really been said who paid the ransom, I think we're supposed to think it was the ship's owner - l'armateur du bâtiment.

The whole world will soon be a no-go zone.
In the words of Kevin Turvey "Anyway, I'm not going there."
PS Kevin Turvey was a kind of live latter-day Alfred E Neumann

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

May be you are too far away in your Arizonan desert, under a burning sun, to be able to have a sound judgment on what really happened off Somalia :))

Seriously now : the French navy (along with other nations - Germany for instance, if I remember well) has a few vessels in the region. One of their tasks is to escort cargo ships delivering to Somalia food paid by the FAO. Even with an escort, it is a dangerous job for the cargo ships - we saw a reporting on TV a few months ago. The problem is that the escorting ship has to stay off the coast in international waters whereas the cargo is unloaded. There are many gunmen in the region or, as Richard Jones puts it: "I can never remember other than anarchy in Somalia". Piratery (on land as well as on sea) is endemic there; it did not start with (European) fishing quotas, as Juliette seems to believe. Of course, on the principle, Juliette is right. Lack of food can lead to big problems.

Azloon, regarding the handling of the crisis, I think it was intelligently made, using just as much force as was needed. It would have been easy for the commandos to blow up the pirates' SUV with a rocket. It would also have been relatively easy for them to chase the other pirats and to fight and destroy them, but with most probably a heavy toll in "civilian" lifes. This has fortunately been avoided. Playing Rambo in a foreign country, furthermore in a Muslim country, is "great risk/reward ratio" (thanks for the expression, Azloon :))

The Navy commandos and the GIGN would also have, if ordered to do so, be able to attack and liquidate the pirates onboard - but probably with many hostages wounded or killed. Kalashnikovs are deadly weapons and there is no need to have been trained at West Point or St-Cyr to be able to use them very "successfully" on disarmed hostages.

[Capitaine Haddock]

Better than to speak by myself, let an anglo-saxon expert express his comments:

ANALYSIS: CLIVE FAIRWEATHER, Former SAS second in command
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Vive-les-pirate-busters.3977247.jp

ANY successful special- forces operation is dependent on stealth, surprise then shock action and, by all accounts, the recovery of the hostages and capture of the pirates responsible for the hijacking of the yacht Le Ponant in the South Arabian seas, by French commandos, will go down in the history books as such. Thirty crew members have apparently been freed, 22 of them French, and six of 12 pirates captured.

By any standards, these are impressive figures; for example the "butcher's bill" at the end of the Iranian Embassy siege in London in May 1980, which was ended by the SAS, was one terrorist captured, five terrorists and two hostages dead, with only 19 rescued.

Moreover, the latter was carried out in the glare of the world's television cameras, whereas the French authorities seem, so far, to have managed to keep such critical and insidious analysis to a few released images, all apparently under their control. More significantly, there are no apparent fatalities, which frankly is amazing.

Nevertheless, doubts that only six of 12 pirates were captured linger on, with much speculation and eyeball rolling being given by the international press to what may have happened to the "missing" six (and that they may somehow have been "erased" by the French, who are internationally renowned for their sang-froid – witness the covert and fatal attack against the yacht Rainbow Warrior off New Zealand in 1985) .

The strategic dimension of this gritty operation should not be ignored, either. It took place a long way from the French homeland. Admittedly, it was close to a former French enclave at Djibouti, but in terms of "reach" it ranks with the successful operation at Entebbe launched by the Israelis in 1976 and the separate ending to an aircraft hijacking by GSG9 German commandos at nearby Mogadishu in 1977.

The French have undoubtedly developed impressive tracking abilities using the latest technologies, at least in their strategic areas of interest, and there is absolutely no doubt that this operation could not have been so peacefully rendered successful without the crucial and detailed intelligence these provided.

It is also noteworthy that the French deployed a hospital ship in support, should things go wrong. Soviet special forces, for example, seem to have ignored similar medical cover in terrorist atrocities in Moscow, then subsequently at Beslan.

All in all, this operation is something for Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and his government to savour.

Some French panache and élan appears, for the moment, to have delivered the flavour of international success.

[Romain]

Azloon
Risk/reward ratio should tally against human lives. In the present case there was no casualty, and most of the money was recovered.
Can you dream of a better risk/reward and cost/benefit ratio ?
Don't overestimate the rogue's power, when there is a will, there is a way, or something like that.

[Daniel Strohl]

Christine,

"but I did not meet any "pleased" colleagues today, all were rather ironic"

May be your rather ironical colleagues participated in the "manif" today in Paris, in the defense of the French school system, notoriously underfinanced by our rightist government, "dont les caisses sont vides" :))

More seriously, Christine : the yacht belongs to a big French shipping company called CGM CGA, and headed by a (rich) Lebanese gentleman. We saw an interesting reporting on this a few months ago. However, I did not know that they had also a ship like "Le Ponant". In any case, there were 22 French personnel on board the Ponant. These 22 persons have a job; even if this job consists in serving and entertaining rich passengers, this is in my opinion better than to live on subsidies from the Assedic.

"And after reading in your post that the yacht's owner is a friend of Sarkozy, I now understand why it was worth it, at least for certain people".

Does this imply that you believe that if the Ponant had been a "lambda" French cargo ship, not belonging to a friend of Sarkozy, the latter would not have made the same efforts to free the hostages as he did with the Ponant ? Or, in other words, do you believe that the French navy (and the GIGN) are mostly or even exclusively at the service of Sarkozy's "friends"?

[Maggie]

Capitaine Haddock mentions the Entebbe raid. There was also the hijacking of an Air France flight in Algeria in around 1995.

The negotiators convinced the hijackers to allow the plane to be flown to Marseilles, and then it sat on the runway for 4 or 5 days, with all the passengers on board. I think the hijackers eventually killed one passenger and threw him down onto the runway, if I remember correctly.

Shortly after this French commandos stormed the plane and rescued all the passengers. There wasn't a single death among the passengers; I can't remember if there were any deaths among the hijackers.

It was a very impressive rescue and it was the first time ever that I felt proud to be French (by marriage, that is). (The second time was when we won the World Cup.) I think it happened not long after the disaster in Waco, Texas, so the French really appeared competent in comparison.

[rocket]

http://tinyurl.com/68mdsj

Even though « Cour d’Assises » judgements are the expression of the « will of the people », public opinion does not always trust their sentencing decisions.
Such may be the case when all the evidence has not been properly gathered. The principle of intime conviction is not sufficient to ascertain the truth and the issue of
guilt. Recent « unusual » verdicts have added confusion. The first degree murder verdict against Omar Raddad (14 years imprisonment) is a prime example. The presidential pardon he was given recently illustrates the confusion. Other cases such as Miss and Tiennot or Seznec, people convicted of murder who have been claiming innocence for years, are very disturbing. Therefore a second trial of crimes should be made possible in order to diminish the likelihood of miscarriages of justice.

[rocket]

http://tinyurl.com/68mdsj

Even though « Cour d’Assises » judgements are the expression of the « will of the people », public opinion does not always trust their sentencing decisions.
Such may be the case when all the evidence has not been properly gathered. The principle of intime conviction is not sufficient to ascertain the truth and the issue of
guilt. Recent « unusual » verdicts have added confusion. The first degree murder verdict against Omar Raddad (14 years imprisonment) is a prime example. The presidential pardon he was given recently illustrates the confusion. Other cases such as Miss and Tiennot or Seznec, people convicted of murder who have been claiming innocence for years, are very disturbing. Therefore a second trial of crimes should be made possible in order to diminish the likelihood of miscarriages of justice.

[Daniel Strohl]

Maggie,

You do have an excellent memory. Hereafter a very detailed link (in French)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vol_AF_8969

PS : Rocket - these highjackers were real crazy terrorists - not "fishermen" :))

[azloon]

[I think it happened not long after the disaster in Waco, Texas, so the French really appeared competent in comparison.] Maggie

waco was wacko, probably the worst-handled "hostage" situation depuis le moyen age. when the u.s. screws up, it screws up BIG.

however, entebbe and other hostage rescue situations mentioned by others, did not, to the best of my knowledge, involve paying ransom money.

in this situation, if the vessel's owner wanted to pay it, and to make it clear that it was his money, that is an ameliorating factor. but that just puts pressure on other owners to do the same, and the pirates will act on that presumption.

in the end, paying terrorists, whoevers money it is, encourages terrorism. it is an inconvenient truth.

[Robert Marchenoir]

Thanks to Capitaine Haddock for praising a splendid French military operation.

What I have read so far shows it was very complex and yet highly successful. Irony about the ransom is misplaced. There was no state money involved. Part of it was recovered almost immediately. Several of the pirates are prisoners of the French military, and seem headed for trial in France.

I don't think anyone would have preferred the Russian option for dealing with hostages: no ransom, very macho, blood all over the place, lots of dead women and children. We do things differently here, thank you very much.

Complaining about the cost seems completely irrelevant to me. The economic angle is more and more invoked nowadays, and sometimes it frankly verges on the absurd.

We have got to the point where a villain might shoot at a cop, and before the cop shoots back, we'll say: hold on! do you know how much these bullets are costing the taxpayer? have you thought of the strain on the state budget, what with the coroner's work, the hospital bill, the judges' salary?

In some instances, national interest comes first and has to be defended whatever the cost.

Besides, I am sure the actual bill of the Ponant rescue is rather modest. Sure, it's probably more expensive than a holiday in Brighton. But I reckon most of it comes from the extra fuel needed to move ships, planes and helicopters for a few hours and days.

Manpower doesn't count. If you pay an admiral to shuffle papers in a Paris office, you might as well parachute him over the sea halfway round the world, at no extra cost to the state. OK, maybe he gets a 20% bonus for being sent to a war zone. Seems to me like a good deal for the taxpayer.

This particular operation is much more commendable than the murky negociations which took place with Islamists in order to free diplomats or journalists, such as Florence Aubenas. In that instance, a ransom was certainly paid by the state. But more worryingly, it was an encouragement to capture more French civilians, since the captors suffered no negative consequences, as far as we know.

Of course, this was probably the only possible way. Unless, again, you had the will -- and the might --to do it Russian style.

Some diplomats of theirs were taken as hostages during one of the Lebanon wars. I don't remember the specific details and this was reported by an anonymous blogger, so you should check it actually happened this way. At least the story sounds likely.

The Russians let the captors know (was it Hezbollah?) that their people had to be released by a certain date, or else. The day goes by, nothing happens. The day after, the negociators receive a nice package, with compliments from Russia. Inside is the head of one of the enemy's leaders, with the promise of more to come if they don't release the hostages immediately. Which they do.

Since we are on the subject of French forces successfully managing dangerous hostage situations, Maggie is right to mention the Air France plane hijacked in Algiers by Islamists in 1994.

What is usually forgotten is that, if French police had not stormed the plane in Marseilles and prevented a bloodbath, the event would have taken horrific proportions, and would have become the French 9/11: the pirates' plan was to crash the plane over Paris onto the Eiffel tower.

A fringe of French wacko liberals propagate the conspiracy theories about 9/11 being in fact a covert operation by the American government. I'm not sure they would have the gall of repeating such contemptible lies if the Eiffel tower had fallen first.

[Romain]

I remember that one Maggie, Dec 1995. It was the pilot who jumped from his cockpit and broke his legs. Watching the assault on tv I said to myself: these guys must be crazy, it will end up with a carnage. No passenger, no crew was killed, I believe no terrorist survived. Another job well done.
The terrorists intended to crash the plane on Paris, kind of rehearsal for 9/11.

[Romain]

Rocket
Right comment on the wrong post lol !

[christopher muir]

Daniel Strohl mentions Rambo. A reminder that these recent lawless events took place in poet Arthur Rimbaud's territory. Wasn't he involved in gun-running in the nineteenth century? This stretch of sea and land has always been a volatile part of the world; I once witnessed a public whipping in Djibouti around the 50s. A Season in Hell, indeed.

[dot king]

The interview shown recently on French TV with one of the GIGN troops who stormed the aircraft at Marseille was very impressive. (Le Grand Journal I think.)
Against a background of film of the event, this highly-trained, intelligent, tough guy was moved almost to tears as he recalled the fear he felt just before the signal "go" was given. He said he thought "what am I doing here?" and wondered if he'd told his family enough how much he loved them. He thought he was going to his death, and like Romain above, I too thought it was going to end in a bloodbath.
The French are strong on diplomacy (if we discount momentarily China) and military strategies of this kind.
Chapeau!

[Daniel Strohl]

Christopher,

Re : Arthur Rimbaud

Another French writer, Henry de Monfreid, had many adventures in these regions. As a young boy, I was a fan of his books. However, this dates a few years back :))

"A Season in Hell, indeed".

Yes, terrible place, with an unbearable heat in summer. I have a few merchant navy memories of a bar called "Le palmier en zinc", dating back to the beginning of the sixties. May be this bar still exists. Légionnaires and sailors are usually rather thirsty people, i.e a good customer base ...

[christopher muir]

Daniel,
I've read a couple of books by Henry de Monfreid. Can only agree that he's worth the time. I recall very well his excellent "Hashish" - Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Greece and Egypt all well described. Isabel Eberhardt was also a great French writer-adventurer.

[Maggie]

"I remember that one Maggie, Dec 1995. It was the pilot who jumped from his cockpit and broke his legs." (Romain)

No, it was 24 December 1994, and it was the co-pilot who jumped, and he broke his arm.

I checked it out on Daniel's link. Just in case there are people who don't read French, here are the details:

The terrorists wanted to go to Paris, and the Algerian government refused. First they killed an Algerian policeman and tossed him out onto the runway. Then Edouard Balladur negotiated with the terrorists and they released 63 women and children in exchange for permission to go to Paris.

But still the Algerian authorities refused to let them leave. They got the chief terrorist's mother to plead with him by radio, which made him so angry that a second passenger, a Vietnamese diplomat, was killed and tossed out onto the runway.

Next a young employee of the French embassy spoke to the control tower, saying that if permission to take off was not given immediately, he would be killed. Shortly after this, he was shot in the head and tossed out on the runway. The terrorists said they would kill a passenger every 30 minutes until they were given permission to take off.

Balladur convinced the Algerian authorities to let them go. The pilot landed in Marseilles, claiming they didn't have enough fuel to fly to Paris. The terrorists demanded 27 tons of fuel, when 8 would have been enough, so it was clear they were planning to turn the plane into a bomb.

The terrorists said they wanted to go to Paris to have a press conference, but they were told that reporters from all over the world were already in Marseilles, so they finally accepted to have the press conference there. All the passengers were moved to the back of the plane in preparation for the press conference.

On Daniel's link there's a video showing the storming of the plane. It took the commandos so long to get the front door open (the staircase was too high) that you feel certain that the terrorists have had enough time to explode the plane. It was an incredible operation -- incredibly difficult and dangerous. A dozen commandos were wounded, as well as 13 passengers and 3 members of the crew.

[Daniel Strohl]

Christopher,

"Isabel Eberhardt was also a great French writer-adventurer"

I am sorry to have to admit that I can't remember having read any book she wrote - her name was faintly familiar to me, but this is all ...

Christopher, it appears that you have a very thorough knowledge of French literature. Congratulations!

[rocket]

Romain

"I remember that one Maggie, Dec 1995. It was the pilot who jumped from his cockpit and broke his legs."

The French special forces did a beautiful job on that one for sure.

[richard jones]

Capitaine Haddock,

Sorry, but when I was a boy Djibouti bordered Somalia thus I don't think the Entebbe 'reach' comment is so very valid in your post.
Comparison with the SAS Iranian embassy operation is not so valid either as that was very much an operation in a new style in a new world. The Somali ooperation and others since have learnt from the SAS Iranian embassy action.
Nevertheless, like you I see it as a very good 'special services' operation.

[rocket]

Captain Haddock

"Admittedly, it was close to a former French enclave at Djibouti, but in terms of "reach" it ranks with the successful operation at Entebbe launched by the Israelis in 1976 and the separate ending to an aircraft hijacking by GSG9 German commandos at nearby Mogadishu in 1977."

No way! Those were not fishermen at Entebbe. No ransom paid at Entebbe. and no green light from the host country. Any country can project special forces on the other side of the world against a group of fishermen.

[Valentin]

Rocket,

The Captain speaks IN TERMS OF REACH, not of "terrorist professionalism" or whatever you wanna call it.

"Any country can project special forces"

Argh, the little Rocket touch :)
When Charles himself prizes French capacity of projecting special forces at long distance, you might wanna try not to be such a party spoiler for once, Mr. R.

Say after me: "I love France and I'm proud of its army's excellence!"
:)

[richard jones]

I scurried up the blog and latched on to Mauvezin whom I would like to thank for absolving me of all blame in any future derogation of anything French.

[Romain]

Azloon

Pirates coming out again.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Secuestrado/piratas/atunero/vasco/aguas/Somalia/elpepuint/20080421elpepuint_5/Tes

Let's see how it goes. There are Spanish experts too.

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon, Romain

Re : Puntland pirates - seizure of a Spanish trawler with a crew of 23

If I believe Le Figaro, Spain asked France to let them use French military facilities in Djibouti. Of course, France said yes, provided that the Djibouti government agrees too.

A few days ago, I read in a paper that two ship crews (one of them Danish if I remember well) have already been hold as hostages by the Puntland pirates. In both cases, ransoms were paid (in the order of 750,000 US dollars). No military intervention. However, a few days ago, a German frigate ("Emden") has helped deter pirates who had tried to assault a big Japanese tanker. Crazy!

PS : Azloon, as Charles has explained, "ponant" is an old French word meaning "west" - it was used in the times of the kings, as for example in "la flotte du ponant".

Its counterpart is "le levant" (du soleil - le soleil se lève à l'est) - countries such as Syria, Lebanon etc. were called and still are occasionally called "les pays du Levant". Their inhabitants were called "les Levantins" (not always meant as a compliment :))

[Romain]

French and Spanish services work hand in hand against Etarra terrorism. No doubt they will stick together on this case.

[azloon]

[Let's see how it goes. There are Spanish experts too.] Romain

no expertise required if your checking account is hefty enough.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/04/27/pirates.spain.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

it looks like the VAT will have to be bumped up a bit to cover pirate payoffs.

[Romain]

You won't believe this:
4 of the 6 pirates captured by French military are part of the Somali president's family.

http://www.lepoint.fr/actualites-monde/exclusif-ponant-4-pirates-membres-de-la-famille-du-president/1648/0/243182

[azloon]

Romain --

now why on earth would think that we wouldn't believe this?