Overnight, two hostages including an American photojournalist, 33-year-old Luke Sommers, who was held for more than a year by al Qaeda’s Yemen branch, as well as a South African teacher, Pierre Korkie, were killed in a botched rescue attempt by US special operations forces. This was the second rescue attempt in as many weeks. According to the WSJ, Luke Somers, 33 years old, was killed by militants, U. S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Saturday. Several members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, were also killed in the raid.
South African teacher Pierre Korkie was also killed in the raid, according to a charity that had been trying to help negotiate his release.
The ill-advised raid had been ordered by President Barack Obama because ‘there were compelling reasons to believe Mr. Somers’ life was in imminent danger’ according to outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel who will be all the more eager to leave the Pentagon after this latest failure which will conclude an administrative career of one debacle after another.
‘Both Mr. Somers and a second non-U. S. citizen hostage were murdered by the AQAP terrorists during the course of the operation,’ Mr. Hagel said in a statement.
A U. S. official said Mr. Somers was shot by militants as the raid unfolded and wasn’t killed in crossfire. It wasn’t immediately clear where Mr. Somers’s remains were.
The raid took place after AQAP had warned that they would kill Mr. Somers if U. S. forces attempted another ‘foolish’ rescue attempt, in a video statement released Thursday. In the video, an AQAP commander threatened to kill Mr. Somers by the end of the week if their unspecified demands weren’t met.
AQAP was true to its word: Somers was indeed killed after US forces attempted another “foolish” rescue attempt. At least al Qaeda gives out fair warnings
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 12/06/2014.
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