Somali pirates contest the US military's version of events surrounding the deaths of 4 Americans off the coast of Oman.
The US military claims the couple were killed by the Somali pirates who hijacked the Americans' yacht, but pirate sources have told the media that the Americans shot two pirates dead and the hostages were then killed in retaliation.
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"It is a fair game that has started. Everybody will react if his life is in danger," one pirate source told the Reuters news agency, following the death of the four Americans and at least two pirates on Tuesday.
"We should not agree to be killed and let the hostages be freed," the sources added.
The American military, however, claim the pirates were first to fire.
After a grenade was laucnhed at their ship, US Special Forces say they raced to the yacht on small boats. By the time they boarded, they heard gunfire and saw that all four Americans had been shot, Fox said. They died after efforts to treat them failed.
The US forces soon took control of the yacht, stabbing to death one pirate and shooting dead another, Fox told reporters at the Pentagon by telephone.
Two more Somali pirates were found dead inside the vessel in unclear circumstances, possibly the result of an earlier fight among the hijackers or of the bullets that killed the hostages, according to US officials.
A yacht owned and sailed by Scott and Jean Adam of California was hijacked on Friday and the couple were reported dead on Tuesday.
Also killed were two US passengers, Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle.
The changing nature of piracy
The BBC reports that captives have rarely been in any great danger, as they are the bargaining chips with which vast ransom payments are negotiated. Yet recent months have seen an apparent increase in violence by pirate captors.
"That to some extent is as a result of the piracy community changing," Alan Cole of the United Nations Office On Drugs And Crime told the BBC.
"It has moved from being formerly disgruntled fishermen to those who come from more of a fighting background, and that has resulted in increased levels of violence."
The UN says interviews with young pirates being held in prisons revealed the pirates tend to be increasingly desperate at sea.
Unlike the former fishermen who used to dominate the activity, the new breed of pirate often gets lost and needs to board a vessel to get food and water in order to get home.
There is growing frustration that despite the presence of dozens of international warships, hijackings at sea have increased.
Although figures vary, Ecoterra International, a group that monitors piracy attacks, reports that 50 vessels are currently being held by Somali pirates along with more than 800 crew.
