WASHINGTON - As dusk began to fall Sunday, the Somali pirates holding captain Richard Phillips had grown edgy.
As they bobbed in the ocean near the USS Bainbridge, a Navy destroyer sent to rescue Phillips, the teenage pirates were experiencing withdrawal after days without khat, a mildly narcotic leaf chewed in for its stimulant effects. "They were realizing they were in a no-win situation," said a senior U.S. military official. "They were floating around in rough waters, they were tired. . . . These guys didn't have their chew with them."
After the on-scene commander judged that Phillips's life was suddenly in immediate jeopardy, three shots rang out from the Bainbridge in indistinguishable succession, felling the three pirates in the lifeboat. Bound tightly, Phillips could not move to celebrate the end of his ordeal until Navy SEALs climbed aboard the small craft and set him free.
"It was pretty remarkable that these snipers nailed these guys," said the senior military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "You think of rough seas, 75, 80 feet away, and under darkness, and they got them. Three pirates, three rounds, three dead bodies."