Apr 9, 2008, 14:11 GMT
Paris - The pirates holding the crew of some 30 sailors of the French luxury yacht Le Ponant are said to belong to a group called the Somali Marines, who were responsible for kidnapping a French journalist in December, the French radio station Europe 1 reported on Wednesday.
'Those people don't care about politics,' the journalist, Gwen Le Gouil, told the station. 'They know only one law, and that is money.'
The Somali Marines are known to be well-armed and prepared to use middlemen to negotiate for long periods to procure as large a ransom as possible.
The yacht was stormed and taken in the Gulf of Aden by a group of armed men on April 4 and is now reported to be anchored off the Somali coast, just south of the autonomous region of Puntland.
The French government has been in contact with the kidnappers and has also sent a special unit of elite soldiers to Djibouti, some 1,000 kilometres away, to pressure the pirates to reach a speedy resolution to negotiations.
Paris also intends to urge the United Nations to provide protection for international shipping near the Somali coast.
Most of the crew of Le Ponant are French nationals, with another six members from the Philippines.
On Wednesday, the Philippine government called for a 'diplomatic solution' to secure the release of the six Filipinos.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo stressed that the safety of the Filipino hostages must be ensured while negotiations take place for their release, her spokesman Anthony Golez said.
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