(CNN) -- The French Navy captured 11 suspected pirates off the coast of Kenya Wednesday, the French Ministry of Defense announced.
Pirates attacked The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship, but were unable to board.

Pirates attacked The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship, but were unable to board.
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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 European Union, NATO and the United States have been patrolling the region since an upsurge in piracy off the coast of Somalia last year.

U.S. snipers killed three pirates holding a U.S. ship captain hostage Sunday. The captain, Richard Phillips, was held in a lifeboat for five days after his ship, the Maersk Alabama, was seized last week. The freed Maersk crew members are scheduled to return to the United States on Wednesday evening.

But pirates in Somalia vowed revenge for the U.S. military action, saying that an attack Tuesday on another ship, the Liberty Sun, was a 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 Hassan Mohamud, 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 since the U.S. Navy freed Phillips on Sunday.

As if attacking ships under a us flag to hold them and their crews captive for ransom is not an act of aggression.