U.S. Navy vessels pursued a pirate ship in the Indian Ocean Somalia's coast and fired warning shots to its crew on Saturday, U.S. Navy Forces Central Command said.
The guided missile destroyer Winston S. Churchill and other U.S. naval forces located the vessel after receiving a report of an attempted act of piracy, but it failed to respond to orders to stop, according to and article from www.msnbc.com.
Piracy has become epidemic in the unpatrolled waters off the coast of lawless Somalia, where at least 23 hijackings and attempted seizures have been reported since mid-March.
Somalia has been without a central government since 1991, when rival warlords ousted Mohamed Siad Barre, said MSNBC.com.
In November, the Somali government signed a two-year deal worth $50 million with a U.S. marine security firm in an effort to end piracy.
