US frees aid workers with raid in Somalia

Mogadishu: US special forces swooped into Somalia to rescue an American and a Dane held by a pirate gang in a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday that US President Barack Obama said he had personally authorised.

US Navy SEALs aboard at least six military helicopters flew in low over central Somalia to surprise the kidnappers, killing all nine captors in a gun battle, before carrying to safety the two unharmed hostages, held since October.

The daring raid deep inside the war-torn Horn of Africa country was launched because one of the two kidnapped aid workers was sick.

"The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

"This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people."

The two hostages, American Jessica Buchanan and Poul Thisted, a Dane, who worked for the Danish Refugee Council Demining Group, were unharmed and flown to safety, their employer said.

"At least six military helicopters attacked early this morning... there was heavy shooting that left several of the pirates dead," said Mohammad Noor, a local security official. "The reports we have is that the freed hostages were flown to Djibouti by their rescuers.".

The commando raid on Somali soil is one of the first to have been officially acknowledged by the US, which admits to flying surveillance drones but rarely comments on reported missile strikes against Al-Qaida-linked militants there.

Buchanan and Thisted were working for the demining unit in central Somalia's semi-autonomous Galmudug region when they were seized by gunmen on October 25 last year.

All captors killed

All nine captors were killed during yesterday's raid, which took place in remote scrubland in the notorious pirate region of Adado in central Somalia, said General Carter F. Ham, head of US Africa Command in a statement.

Ham praised the "courageous, competent and committed" men who carried out the raid, at least 100km inside Somalia.

A lack of effective central government since Somalia plunged into civil war two decades ago has allowed militias to flourish, with insurgents and pirate gangs ruling mini fiefdoms.