SEOUL (AFP) – Seoul newspapers heaped praise on South Korean navy commandos who battled pirates off the coast of Somalia to release captured crew.
“The Cheongha Unit salvages national pride,” declared the Dong-A Ilbo’s frontpage banner headline over a colour photo of SEAL special forces storming a South Korean freighter that had been taken by pirates in the Indian Ocean.
In a pre-dawn operation about 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) off northeast Somalia on Friday, the elite troops freed all the hostages, killing eight pirates and capturing five others in compartment-to-compartment battles.
The Korea Times said the success would serve as a “clear message that Seoul will no longer compromise with pirates, terrorists and hijackers.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/skoreasomaliapiracy;_ylt=AiNRHod4YCIrxbbloczPdCt0fNdF