days after his ship , the Maersk Alabama , was attacked last week . The freed Maersk crew members are expected to return to the United States on Wednesday evening . Pirates in Somalia vowed revenge . Pirates said an attack Tuesday on another U.S.-flagged merchant ship , the Liberty Sun , was in response to the killing of Phillips ' captors . `` It was a revenge , '' Hassan Mohamud told a Somali journalist . `` The U.S. ship escaped by a matter of chance . '' `` We sent out 14 boats full of well-armed men and we are looking for vessels of U.S. and French nationals , '' said Mohamud . He is a pirate leader based Gara'ad in Puntland , a semi-autonomous Somali region with a long coastline along the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden . `` The U.S. and French governments should know this because they started the aggression on us , '' he said . Other pirates in the region have also vowed revenge . Two days before Phillips was rescued , the French military freed four hostages , including a child , who had been held by pirates for nearly a
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The French navy on Wednesday captured 11 suspected pirates off the coast of Kenya , Franc ' e mnistry of defense announced , while other pirates who had held a Greek vessel for nearly a month let it go . Pirates attacked The Liberty Sun , a U.S.-flagged cargo ship , but were unable to board . The navy tracked the pirates overnight after they attacked a ship called the Safmarine Asia , then seized them at dawn Wednesday morning , the ministry said in a statement . The Greek-flagged Titan cargo ship was carrying a load of iron to South Korea when pirates seized it . Twenty-four crew members were on board -- 17 Filipinos , three Greeks , three Romanians and a Ukrainian . They are in good health , said Tilemahos Gasteratos , spokesman for the Greek Merchant Marine Ministry . The European Union , NATO and the United States have been patrolling the region since an upsurge in piracy off the coast of Somalia began last year . U.S. snipers on Sunday killed three pirates holding hostage a U.S. merchant ship captain . Richard Phillips was held in a lifeboat for five