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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Luke Somers and a non-American hostage were killed by al-Qaeda militants during a rescue attempt in Yemen. Somers had been held captive since 2013. His life was threatened in a video released just days earlier. VPC
A screen grab from video posted online by militants on Dec. 4 shows Luke Somers, an American photojournalist born in Britain and held hostage by an al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.(Photo: AP)
American photojournalist Luke Somers was killed during a failed rescue attempt in Yemen, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Saturday.
Somers had been held by al-Qaeda militants since his abduction in Yemen's capital of Sanaa in September 2013.
Hagel, speaking from Kabul where he made a surprise visit Saturday, confirmed the British-born hostage's death following an unsuccessful raid to free him by U.S. and Yemeni special forces.
"There were compelling reasons to believe Mr. Somers' life was in imminent danger," Hagel said in a statement, describing Somers' death as murder at the hands of terrorists.
Lucy Somers said she learned of her brother's death from the FBI.
"We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace," she told the Associated Press.
A second hostage, South African Pierre Korkie, a teacher abducted in Yemen in May 2013 with his wife, was also killed in the failed raid. Yolande Korkie had previously been released by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula militants.
During the rescue operation, helicopters swept in and dropped U.S. commandos about a mile from the village where Somers was being held, according to a senior Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
U.S. warplanes flew overhead for protection but did not fire weapons. The commandos, from teams based in the Middle East, killed all of the al-Qaeda-linked terrorists. No U.S. forces were wounded, the official said.
President Obama said he authorized the rescue attempt because of information the U.S. had that Somers' life was in immediate danger, including a video released by his terrorist captors this week that announced the journalist would be killed within 72 hours.
"As this and previous hostage rescue operations demonstrate, the United States will spare no effort to use all of its military, intelligence and diplomatic capabilities to bring Americans home safely, wherever they are located. And terrorists who seek to harm our citizens will feel the long arm of American justice," Obama said.
U.S. officials believe the militants shot the two men during a firefight, and that both were alive when American forces pulled them from a building on the group's compound and got them aboard aircraft, where medical teams operated on them during a short flight to the USS Makin Island, a Navy ship in the region.
Korkie is believed to have died during the flight, while American Somers died on the ship, according to senior U.S. officials who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information had yet to be approved for release.
Those who knew Somers, who was born in Britain but spent much of his life in America, remembered the photographer as a person drawn to new experiences.
"He really wanted to understand the world," said Shawn Gillen, an English professor and chairman of Beloit College's journalism program. Somers earned a bachelor's degree in creative writing while attending Beloit College in Wisconsin from 2004 to 2007. "He'd want to be in places where world events were happening."
Luke Somers, 33, attends the National Dialogue Conference in Sanaa, Yemen, in June 2013.(Photo: Jaber Ahmed Grab, AP)
Tamarack Song, director of The Teaching Drum Outdoors School in Three Lakes, Wis., met Somers in 2007 when he was hired to edit a book for the school.
"He was born in England, raised in America. He had wanderlust. He wanted to know what made people tick. He has an undying curiosity for human dynamics and for the way people worked. He was constantly doing research." Song said. "He wanted to be in the center of things and to get a feel for it. To get closer and closer, to interview people, to research, to write, to get right there."
At a news conference in Bahrain on Saturday, Yemen's national security chief, Maj. Gen. Ali al-Ahmadi, said the militants had planned to kill Somers on Saturday.
"Al-Qaeda promised to conduct the execution (of Somers) today so there was an attempt to save them but unfortunately they shot the hostage before or during the attack," al-Ahmadi said.
At the same time, Pierre Korkie was set to be released Sunday, according to Gift of Givers, the aid group that negotiated his wife's freedom.
"The psychological and emotional devastation to Yolande and her family will be compounded by the knowledge that Pierre was to be released by al-Qaeda," the group said in a statement.
In a YouTube video released Wednesday, Somers, 33, said his "life is in danger." The video featured an al-Qaeda official and a brief message from Somers — dressed in a purple shirt and with a shaved head — at the end.
USA TODAY
Al-Qaeda affiliate threatens to kill American hostage
Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said Thursday a U.S. raid last month attempted to free Somers, but he turned out not to be at the site.
Before her brother's death, Lucy Somers released an online video describing him as a romantic who "always believes the best in people." She ended with the plea: "Please let him live."
The family of Luke Somers, an American photojournalist taken hostage by al-Qaida in Yemen, posted a YouTube video pleading for his captors to spare him. VPC
Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook; the Associated Press
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