U.S. wins praise for freeing captain, but experts fear escalation

LONDON -- President Obama and the U.S. military drew praise Monday for the liberation of an American sea captain held by Somali pirates, but some military experts fear the fatal shooting of three pirates will lead to an escalation of the conflict off Somalia's coast.

They warn that pirate attacks will not end with the freedom of Capt. Richard Phillips and may turn more violent now that the world's most powerful military has used skilled snipers to kill pirates.

There is no sign of an international consensus about how best to deal with the bandits. Some countries are willing to pay ransom to free their nationals, while France and the U.S. have chosen to attack instead.

Some military strategists think it may ultimately be necessary to attack the pirates' base in Somalia, much as the British did two centuries ago. But few have the appetite for a land operation in Somalia, where a U.S. military foray in the early 1990s ended in humiliation. And the cost in civilian casualties would likely be extremely high, some warn.

"That would be nuts," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and State Department counterterrorism specialist. "These people are not organized into any military force -- they are intermingled with women and children. You're talking about wiping out villages."

He said the U.S. action and a French attack a few days earlier on a pirate-held yacht with hostages on board were corrective measures that did not solve the underlying problem.

"When you allow a bunch of Somali clans to grab their weapons and head to sea and collect millions of dollars in ransom, you can't be surprised when it gets out of control," he said. "You need an international coalition, with all the countries that have flag ships, to make it impossible for the pirates to get in a boat and leave the shore. Otherwise the ships will continue to be sitting ducks."

Johnson has in the past criticized Obama as inexperienced, but he said the new commander in chief deserves credit for using established national security procedures to deal with the crisis while refraining from making comments that would have inflamed the situation.

"He stepped back and let the professionals do what they are supposed to do," Johnson said. "Since the 1980s we've built national security doctrine for how to handle these matters, and Obama allowed these procedures to operate."

Robert Fox, defense correspondent for London's Evening Standard newspaper said the U.S. government is now pressing Europe's governments to step up surveillance efforts and do more to fight pirates. He said more action would be needed to "clean out" pirate enclaves.