Horn of Africa Update: Four Americans Murdered by Somali Pirates; 17 Killed in Mogadishu Truck Bombing

Somali pirates shot dead four American yachters while the commandeered vessel was being shadowed by the Destroyer USS Sterrett on Tuesday.

U.S. forces boarded the yacht Quest after one of the pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Sterrett. The grenade missed, but gunfire erupted from inside the Quest. Several pirates appeared on the deck of the Quest ready to surrender. As the Navy SEALS boarded the yacht, they found two pirates dead from small arms fire and killed two more below decks in close quarters combat.

Below decks, the SEALS also found the bodies of Scott and Jean Adam of Laguna Beach, CA and Bob Riggle and Phyllis Mackay of Seattle, WA. The four Americans were airlifted to USS Enterprise where they were pronounced dead. The Navy also took 15 of the surviving pirates into custody at that point.

The yacht Quest was registered to the Adams, who had spent the past few years sailing the world and passing out bibles along remote seaside villages in Alaska, Central America, Fiji and Polynesia.

Reportedly this pirate attack was different from others in that the pirates boarded and seized the Quest directly from one of their 'mother ships' instead of sending out gunmen in small skiffs to seize the vessel. The four Americans were reportedly sailing off the coast of Oman when they were accosted by the pirates [As a side note, does anybody else find it somewhat disturbing that when this DOES get mentioned by the mainstream media, it's as though the bibles might've played a role in their death, not the dozen or so gun wielding Muslim men from the failed state who actually commandeered their ship and pulled the trigger? NANESB!].

As navies from various nations have stepped up patrols in international waters off the coast of Somalia, Somali-based pirates have pushed further and further eastward into the Indian ocean, striking vessels closer to the Indian Ocean island nations of the Seychelles or Maldives or even India than the Horn of Africa.

The massacre of the 4 Americans comes about a month after South Korean commandos successfully raided a tanker that had been seized by pirates and freed the crew who were being held hostage. In May 2010, Russian Naval commandos carried out a similar operation, freeing the crew of the MV Moscow University.

ELSEWHERE: A truck bomb detonated outside of a police training center in Mogadishu on Monday, killing at least 17 people. The Somali Islamist group Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.

Guards shot at the vehicle as it sped towards them from a busy intersection near the port before it exploded, killing several pedestrians and destroying nearby homes. The police academy was located some 1600 feet from Mogadishu's busy port.

In response to the bombing, Somali troops backed by African Union peacekeepers fanned out through Mogadishu claiming to have captured three Al Shabaab bases on Wednesday.

Besides mounting an insurgency campaign against African Union peacekeepers presently in Somalia, Al Shabaab had also claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings in the Ugandan capital of Kampala in July 2010.