(CNN) – Wren Thomas grew up in the middle of the cornfields of central Illinois, longing, he says, to do
something important in his life “to make his family
proud.” So when a cousin beckoned him to come work
on boats off Louisiana, he jumped at the chance. His goal: to be a ship captain, “the best that I could be.” “It meant strength, accomplishment,’ he said when he
finally was made a captain in 1991 and traveled the
world for various shipping firms. With a wife, eventually
three children and boat to lead, Capt. Wren Thomas had
achieved his piece of the American dream. “I wanted to be in charge of my own destiny,” he
recalled during an interview in his attorney’s Houston
office. All of that came crashing down on October 23, 2013
when Thomas was piloting his supply boat, the C-
Retriever off the coast of Nigeria towards a Chevron-
owned oil field. Over the next six hours, he would huddle with his crew
in an incredibly hot, water-sealed tank room as a half-
dozen pirates stormed his boat and began their siege
looking for their prize: the American captain and his
American-born engineer. Thomas reluctantly gave up
when the pirates started firing guns through a hole in the room door. He told his engineer they had no choice if
the rest of the 13-member crew, still in hiding, was to be
spared. “I told him, ‘Look I think it’s time we give up. If we
don’t give up we are either going to die or somebody is
going to get killed from ricocheting bullets.’” Thomas and his engineer were the only ones to be
kidnapped by the pirates, driven away in a speed boat
and held in Nigerian swamps and jungles for 18 days.
The experience was so horrific that even today Thomas
is unable to bring himself to reveal all details of his
captivity. “We weren’t being punched or kicked or anything like
that but just I’ve told people that I would have rather
been punched then went through what I went
through,” Thomas said. “The mental abuse of it with the
guns pointing at you. And knowing how unstable these
guys are.” Thomas said there were about 18 Nigerian kidnappers,
some chain-smoked marijuana or crack incessantly,
constantly waving their weapons and making threats. Food consisted of instant noodles — on days the
negotiations were going well — and maybe a bottle of
water. And his captors blared their music constantly,
fixated on, of all things, country singer Dolly Parton’s
song, “Coat of Many Colors,” and the music of hip hop
artist 50 Cent. “I knew I was going to die. We knew it every day,
every night,” he said. Despite the chaos in the jungle, Thomas said the leaders
were organized, using satellite phones to negotiate, first
demanding a $2 million ransom. Thomas believes the
payoff was eventually whittled down to several
hundred thousand dollars, though CNN cannot confirm
who paid the ransom or who received it. Thomas said one evening he and his engineer were told
to get in a small boat with six pirates. They motored for
about two hours to reach a village. There, four of the
pirates got out and met some other men who handed
them backpacks, Thomas told CNN. They returned to the
boat and counted the cash stuffed into the bags. After a dispute, Thomas says he and the engineer were taken to
the other men and told to lie on the ground until the
pirates left. Then they were put in a car and driven off.
Later they were transferred to a second car, where a
representative from the shipping company was waiting
for them. At that point they were finally free, 18 days after being seized at gunpoint. After a debriefing by his ship managers, then a similar
one by the FBI in Lagos, Nigeria, Thomas returned to the
United States last November, days after his release. He
has been seeing mental health advisers and other
medical professionals since. But his hostage-taking and the negotiations that freed
him have raised alarm bells in counterterrorism circles
and elsewhere for numerous reasons; not the least is
Thomas’ claim that the FBI told him the money paid for his freedom may eventually have wound up in the hands of the notorious terror group Boko Haram. That is the same group that in April kidnapped nearly
300 Nigerian girls. They’re also blamed for laying waste
to multiple villages in the northern part of the country,
burning them down and killing many people in bomb
attacks. Thomas said during his debriefing in Lagos the FBI indicated that the money paid for his freedom may have been funneled through other groups before making its way to Boko Haram. The FBI would not comment. CNN cannot independently confirm whether
Boko Haram received any money from the kidnapping. Yan St-Pierre, CEO of Modern Security Consulting Group, said his contacts believe Boko Haram, once confined strictly to the northern parts of Nigeria, is benefiting from the increase in piracy along the west coast of Africa. But the group is perhaps not directly carrying out the kidnappings itself. “So when people are asking, is there a link between
Boko Haram and piracy in Nigeria, it’s not the one they
usually expect it to be,” said St-Pierre, whose firm was
not involved in the Thomas case. “It’s one that is not
necessarily logistical and operational. It’s one that is
more subtle. Essentially they will probably provide personnel every now and then, but it’s not a fixed
structure. So we are talking more (about) providing
means to wash the money, to clean it. To make sure the
smuggling routes, personnel, sex slaves, drugs, weapons
above all else, these pirates need weapons. “So if Boko Haram provided the weapons in advance for
example and said, ‘Well we will get a cut of the ransom,’
which is standard policy within these groups within the
region in general, this would make absolute sense to
say, well the ransom money that was paid for the
captain ended up at the very least partially into Boko Haram’s hands, quite probably as a payment for services
delivered.” Major oil companies have an official policy of not paying
ransom for personnel or the thefts of fuel and ships on
the high seas. And subsidiary companies, like Capt.
Thomas’ employer Edison Chouest, aren’t talking, so it is unclear if they, too, have the same policy. It is against U.S. law to deal with terrorists but that issue
becomes murky when dealing with ransoms for
captives because so many middle men are involved,
counterterrorism sources said; it is hard to say who is a
terrorist and who is just a common criminal. Piracy off the coast of Nigeria is on the rise, according to
one study published by Oceans Beyond Piracy , a project of the One Earth Foundation. By contrast, piracy off
Somalia — on the other side of the African continent —
dropped dramatically in 2013 to only 23 vessels attacked
from 237 ships attacked in 2011, the same group reported. In West Africa, the group estimates there were at least 100 total piracy attacks and characterized them as
more violent and frequent. Thomas, in a series of emails, says he warned his
company, Edison Chouset, that security was
deteriorating and he feared some of his own Nigerian
crew members. His attorney shared two of the emails
with CNN. In one email to his operations coordinator, Thomas,
summing up his fear of the security situation, wrote “I
am also asking to not to return to Nigeria.” Thomas said company officials told him things would
improve but never did. On the day he set out on his
fateful trip, Thomas said dock workers announced over
two-way radio where the ship was going and what
supplies it was carrying. He said those communications
left them doomed before they ever got to their destination. “The pirates (later) told me they knew where we was
going … they knew my cargo, they knew my position,
they knew the track I was taking.” CNN made multiple attempts to contact Edison Chouest
for comment but the company refused to return
multiple calls or an email. Thomas said two representatives from the company
stayed near his wife in their hometown during his
ordeal and the FBI was also in contact. But once he was
freed, the communications virtually ended. It wasn’t
until January that someone from the company offered
to assist in his medical care and other financial needs, he said. Thomas is now consulting with a Houston attorney on
his next move as he says he is medically unable to return
to his overseas duties as a ship captain. “Life is hell for me now,” Thomas said. “Life will never be
the same again. The man that my wife married is not the
same anymore….I walk around all day paranoid. I’m
sad. I can’t sleep. My family is hurt.” Earlier this year, Thomas finally broke his silence, giving
an in-depth interview to a shipping newsletter gCaptain. He is talking now, he says, so others don’t face the same
fate. His attorney, Brian Beckcom, represented members of
the Maersk Alabama crew that served with Capt. Richard
Philips, whose capture by Somali pirates was made into
a movie starring Tom Hanks. He said he believes these
companies owe crew members, like Thomas, the same
level of protection now provided to crews off the Somalian coast. “Now all the ships in East Africa have armed guard, or
most do, and piracy has plummeted in East Africa. West
Africa is now the hotspot and there is no question that
these companies are making hundreds of millions in (oil)
profits should do something more than they’re doing to
protect the men that work over there,” Beckcom said.

RUBISH!

Watch how they will change the issue from a bunch of Islamic lunatics killing innocents in the NE to MEND which has not been active since 2007 and who share no single ideology or grievances with Boko Haram.

This is how they deceived the World that Saddam had something to do with 9/11.

Obama your plan will not work.

See story

America just failed with this one... gibberish!