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Artikel gevonden dat geschreven is door een zeker Dieter Ludwig , zou het dezelfde zijn die onlangs opgegraven is » www.upi.com/
Indian ships opened fire on mercenary vessel
A battle on the high seas between two Indian warships and mercenaries fleeing an aborted coup in the Maldives left more people dead than was reported by Indian officials, witnesses said Tuesday.
Witnesses to the sea battle, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 15 people were killed in the Indiannavy operation to rescue about 27 people held hostage aboard a freighter seized by the mercenaries.
The dead included seven mercenaries, four crew members of the freighter Progress Light and four hostages, the witnesses said. Three other hostages were missing and 10 were wounded, they said.
On Sunday, the day of the battle, the Indians reported only four confirmed deaths -- all of them hostages -- with three other hostages missing and an unspecified number of others shot and wounded.
The Indian reports also said two ringleaders of the mercenaries were captured and that 20 hostages were freed.
About 150 mercenaries, most believed to be ethnic Tamils from Sri Lanka hired by three disgruntled Maldivian businessmen, staged a coup attempt Thursday to overthrow the government of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
At least 27 people died in the mercenary attack on the islands, a British protectorate from 1887 until winning independence on July 26, 1965.
But the coup was abandoned after Indian military forces landed on the archipelago nation and regained control of the islands.
Many of the mercenaries took hostages and seized the Progess Light and another vessel in an attempt to return to Sri Lanka. Indian warships sank one of the getaway boats a short time later and continued to pursue the Progress Light.
The gun battle erupted Sunday, with the Indian forces opening fire on the freighter when mercenaries refused to stop steaming toward Sri Lanka.
Foreign Minister Sathulla Jameel, speaking at a news conference on Male, capital of the Indian Ocean archipelego, also contradicted the Indian government's version of the hostage rescue.
'As far as we know, two of the hostages were executed in cold blood by the mercenaries and later on, two others were apparently killed in a shootout between the mercenaries and the Indian commandos,' Jameel said.
He said his government was not aware of the exact number of casualties in the gun battle and had no further details of the high sea drama.
Witnesses to the fighting gave a vivid account of the action.
They said the Indian naval ships closed in on the Progress Light after 12 hours of negotiations with mercenary leader Abdula Lathufee, who warned Indian officials to keep their distance.
'Stay off 5 miles or we will execute the hostages,' one of the witnesses quoted Lathufee as telling the Indians.
The witnesses said a helicopter flew ahead of the hostage ship and dropped a depth charge in the water as a show of force. The charge caused no damage but the Progress Light refused to stop.
After the Indian ships fired a salvo of about 60 warning shots, the mercenaries then forced the hostages to stand aboard the Progress Light's bridge while they took cover behind sandbags on the deck, the witnesses said.
The Indians then began shelling the freighter, with one shell blowing up a motor launch and another slamming into some oil drums, igniting a fire, they said.
The billowing smoke acted as a screen between the mercenaries and the hostages and the Indian commander told the Progress Light's captain to order the hostages to jump overboard.
The hostages threw a raft overboard and jumped into the water, waiting to be picked up by Indian boats. Before they could be rescued, however, Indian forces opened fire with rifles and machine guns to drive off a school of sharks attracted by blood from the wounded hostages, the witnesses said.
The captain of the Indian warship that brought the mercenaries and hostages back to Male said the two Indian ships fired several rockets across the bow of the Progress Light and shelled it to force the mercenaries to surrender.
'We fired a couple of times across their bows,' said Capt. Gopalchari of the INS Godavari. 'At the final stage, we had to put up one shot on the top of the box (ship) to stop the chaps and that too might have caused a small, little fire.'
By Dieter Ludwig
