Watch out Somali pirates, the Egyptians are fighting back!

The ABC report today that a crew of Egyptian mariners, held hostage for four months, overpowered their machete wielding pirate captors and won back their freedom — leaving the pirates more than a little worse for wear:

Two of their kidnappers were killed, several were captured and one was rescued after being stabbed and thrown into the sea.

But the best line from the story is this:

The Egyptians sailed for home with the captured pirates on board.

I wonder if we’ll ever hear reports of the pirates’ fate in the media?

Coverage of events in Africa are rather slim on the ground in Australian media, so it’s interesting to see how popular even rather small stories about the Somali pirates have become.

Of course it’s all wire copy and there’s very little actual in depth analysis of who the pirates are, what they’re doing there etc. But the international media — particularly British media — do a great job of it, examining the economics of piracy and looking at how the nearly non-existent governments of Puntland and Somalia fail to provide the infrastructure to deter piracy or make it in any way punishable.