Snipers on a US Navy ship have shot dead three Somali pirates in a lifeboat and rescued an American sea captain.
It happened on Sunday in a surprise night-time assault in choppy seas, ending a five-day stand-off between a team of rogue gunmen and the world's most powerful military.
Capt Richard Phillips, 53, had been taken hostage on Wednesday by the pirates as they tried to hijack his US-flagged Maersk Alabama cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden.
The operation, personally approved by US President Barack Obama, quashed fears the saga could drag on for months and marked a victory for the US, which for days seemed powerless to resolve the crisis despite massing helicopter-equipped warships at the scene.
One of the pirates pointed an AK-47 at the back of Capt Phillips, who was tied up and in "imminent danger" of being killed when the commander of the nearby USS Bainbridge made the split-second decision to order his men to shoot. The lifeboat was being towed by the Bainbridge at the time.
A fourth pirate was in discussions with naval authorities about Capt Phillips' fate when the rescue took place. He is now in US custody and could face life in a US prison.
The rescue was a dramatic blow to the pirates who have preyed on international shipping and hold more than a dozen ships with about 230 foreign sailors.
But this success is unlikely to do much to quell the region's growing pirate threat, which has transformed one of the world's busiest shipping lanes into one of its most dangerous. It also risked provoking retaliatory attacks.
Mr Obama said capt Phillips had courage that was "a model for all Americans". He said the US needs help from other countries to deal with the threat of piracy and to hold pirates accountable.
Capt Phillips' 17,000-ton ship, which docked with the 19 members of his crew on Saturday in Mombasa, Kenya, erupted into wild cheers on hearing the news. Some of the crew waved an American flag and one fired a bright red flare skyward in celebration.
