Warships stalk pirates holding US captain

Mombasa, Kenya: US warships and helicopters stalked a lifeboat holding an American sea captain and his four Somali captors on Sunday as a Somali official and others reported negotiations for his release have broken down.

The district commissioner of the central Jariban region said talks went on all day Saturday, with clan elders from his area talking by satellite telephone and through a translator with Americans, but collapsed late Saturday night.

"The negotiations between captors and American officials have broken down. The reason is American officials wanted to arrest the pirates in Puntland and elders refused the arrest of the pirates," said the commissioner, Abdi Aziz Aw Yusuf.

Two other Somalis, one involved in the negotiations and another in contact with the pirates, said the talks collapsed because of the US insistence that the pirates be arrested and brought to justice.