By Abdiqani Hassan

BOSSASO, Somalia (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy handed over the bodies of three Somali pirates on Thursday who were killed during the rescue of U.S. ship captain Richard Phillips.

Commandos shot dead the three gunmen on April 12 and ended a five-day hostage ordeal for the Maersk Alabama captain, who was being held on a lifeboat far out in the Indian Ocean. A fourth pirate was arrested and taken to the United States for trial.

“We received the bodies with their identity papers and will bury them,” Mohamed Yare, commander of Bossaso port in Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern Puntland region, told Reuters.

Heavily armed pirates from Somalia have been striking vessels in Indian Ocean shipping lanes and the Gulf of Aden, capturing dozens of vessels, kidnapping hundreds of hostages and raking in millions of dollars in ransoms.

The attacks have disrupted U.N. aid supplies, driven up insurance costs and forced some firms to consider routing cargo between Europe and Asia around South Africa instead.

Many of the sea gangs are based in Puntland, which has been relatively peaceful compared with southern Somalia — which has been mired in conflict for the last 18 years.

One pirate told Reuters the unprecedented deployment by foreign navies to counter the hijackings in the region had made them re-assess how they operated, but had not deterred them.

“We shall change our tactics of hunting ships, but we shall never give up,” said the pirate, who gave his name as Hussein, by telephone from the coastal town of Haradheere.

(Additional reporting by Abdi Guled in Mogadishu; Writing by Wangui Kanina; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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