U.S. & World

PARIS (AP) ― French troops captured six pirates after they released 30 hostages on Friday who were aboard a tourist yacht off Somalia's coast, French officials said.

French Gen. Jean-Louis Georgelin said no public money was used to pay a ransom. But he hinted heavily that the boat's owners did hand over money, and that some was recovered when the pirates were caught. French troops had recovered "interesting bags," he said.

French shipping company CMA-CGM, which owns the operator of the 288-foot Le Ponant, hailed the end of the standoff but released no details about the operation.

The six captured pirates were being held on a French Navy vessel, the president's office said. They "gave themselves up without too much difficulty" and will be handed over to French judicial authorities, Georgelin said.

The pirates seemed to be Somali fishermen, and there were about a dozen altogether, he added. It was not immediately clear what had happened to the others.

France sent an elite commando force to the East African region after pirates seized the boat, Le Ponant, in the Gulf of Aden on April 4. It carried no passengers but 30 crew members, 22 of them French.

Earlier Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a statement thanking the French army and other agencies "that allowed a quick end" to the hostage-taking.

The hostages, including six Filipino crew members, were taken to a French military base in Djibouti and will be flown to Paris in "two to three days," according to Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos.

"They are in good physical condition. ... All of them are safe and sound," he told The Associated Press in Manila, adding that the yacht also "was turned over safe."

He said the Philippine government had no role in the release of the hostages.

Abdi-salan Qoje, a fisherman working on the Somali shore near where the boat was being held, said he saw dozens of people being ferried from the hijacked ship on Friday.

"As we went fishing at dawn we saw two empty boats heading to the hijacked ship in the distance," he told The Associated Press by telephone from the village of Eyl, about 300 miles north of Mogadishu. "As the day wore on, the same boats passed us carrying at least 30 people. They waved at us."

Le Ponant is a three-masted vessel that can hold up to 64 passengers. About 10 pirates stormed the yacht as it was returning without passengers from the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, toward the Mediterranean Sea. The pirates then guided it down Somalia's eastern coast.

An official in Somalia's semiautonomous Puntland region, near where the yacht was held, warned the French government earlier this week against paying a ransom, saying it would encourage pirates to continue taking hostages.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner welcomed a "happy ending" to the standoff and urged the international community to mobilize efforts against pirates in the Gulf of Aden. He said discussions were under way at the United Nations to strengthen global efforts against pirates.

Pirates seized more than two dozen ships off Somalia's coast last year. The U.S. Navy has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region, but an increase in naval patrols has coincided with a series of kidnappings of foreigners on land.

Somalia has been wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy and does not have its own navy. A transitional government formed in 2004 with U.N. help has struggled to assert control.

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