Somali pirates vow revenge over comrades' killings

By Abdiqani Hassan

BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) - Somali pirates threatened revenge on Sunday after two separate hostage-rescue raids by foreign forces killed at least five comrades, raising fears of future bloodshed on the high seas.

The latest raid by U.S. forces on Sunday that saved an American hostage and one by France last week have upped the stakes in shipping lanes off the anarchic Horn of Africa nation where buccaneers have defied foreign naval patrols.

"The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now," Hussein, a pirate, told Reuters by satellite phone.

"We cannot know how or whether our friends on the lifeboat died, but this will not stop us from hijacking," he said.

Sea gangs generally treat their captives well, hoping to fetch top dollar in ransoms.

The worst violence has been an occasional beating.

"We shall revenge," said another pirate, Aden, in Eyl village, a pirate lair on Somalia's eastern coast.

Some fear the U.S. and French operations may make the modern-day pirates more like their more fearsome forbearers.