Luke Somers, South African killed in failed U.S. rescue attempt

[rangerrebew]

Obama says US captive’s life was in imminent danger

Slain photojournalist was killed during US rescue attempt from al-Qaeda captivity in Yemen

By AP December 6, 2014, 2:30 pm 1
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Saturday he authorized the attempt to rescue American Luke Somers in Yemen because the US had information that the American photojournalist’s life was in imminent danger.
 

Shortly before the White House statement, Yemen’s national security chief said militants had planned to kill Somers on Saturday. On Thursday, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula posted a video online threatening to kill the American. 
 
Authorities said Somers, who was kidnapped in September 2013, and a South African teacher, Pierre Korkie, were killed in the rescue operation that Obama said was conducted by US forces in partnership with Yemen’s government.

The president said he “strongly condemns the barbaric murder of Luke Somers at the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists” and reaffirmed that the US “will spare no effort to use all its military, intelligence and diplomatic capabilities to bring Americans home safely, wherever they are located.”

Obama said terrorists “who seek to harm out citizens will feel the long arm of American justice.”

A mysterious US raid last month had tried to rescue Somers but that he turned out not to be at the site, the Pentagon’s spokesman acknowledged Thursday.

Obama cited the captors’ video threatening to kill Somers within 72 hours and said “other information also indicated that Luke’s life was in imminent danger.”

“Based on this assessment, and as soon as there was reliable intelligence and an operational plan, I authorized a rescue attempt yesterday,” Obama said in the White House statement.

Obama said Somers wanted to use his images to convey the lives of Yemenis to outsiders, and had come to the country “in peace and was held against his will and threatened by a despicable terrorist organization. The callous disregard for Luke’s life is more proof of the depths of AQAP’s depravity, and further reason why the world must never cease in seeking to defeat their evil ideology.”


Read more: Obama says US captive's life was in imminent danger | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-says-us-captives-life-was-in-imminent-danger/#ixzz3L7mZeKe6
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[mystery-ak]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-hostage-luke-somers-killed-in-yemen-rescue-attempt/

CBS/APDecember 6, 2014, 5:26 AM
Luke Somers, South African killed in failed U.S. rescue attempt

Last Updated Dec 6, 2014 9:18 AM EST

SANAA, Yemen -- An American photojournalist and a South African teacher held by al Qaeda militants in Yemen have been killed in a failed U.S. rescue attempt, authorities said Saturday.

President Obama said in a statement that he ordered the raid that saw American Luke Somers and South African Pierre Korkie killed after Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula posted a video online Thursday threatening to kill Somers.

Information "indicated that Luke's life was in imminent danger," Mr. Obama said. "Based on this assessment, and as soon as there was reliable intelligence and an operational plan, I authorized a rescue attempt. ... I also authorized the rescue of any other hostages held in the same location as Luke."

The aid group Gift of Givers later identified the second hostage as Korkie, who the group said was to be released Sunday. They said he was to be flown out of Yemen "under diplomatic cover, then to meet with family members in a 'safe' country (and) fly to South Africa."

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the raid was carried out by U.S. Navy SEALs who flew into Yemen on a V-22 Osprey aircraft and hiked to the location where Somers was being held.

CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata reports that a Defense Department official said Somers was apparently shot by his captors during the raid. Something must have alerted Somers' captors of the raid, giving them enough time to shoot Somers and Korkie, D'Agata reports.

When the SEALs reached Somers he was alive but had been badly wounded and died of his wounds by the time he reached a U.S. Navy ship, D'Agata reports.

There were no U.S. military casualties, D'Agata reports.

Lucy Somers, the photojournalist's sister, told The Associated Press that she and her father learned of her 33-year-old brother's death from FBI agents at 12 a.m. EST Saturday.

"We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace," Lucy Somers said from London.

Yemen's national security chief, Maj. Gen. Ali al-Ahmadi, said the militants planned to kill Luke 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 a conference in Manama, Bahrain. "He was freed but unfortunately he was dead."

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen's local al Qaeda branch, posted a video Thursday that showed Somers, threatening to kill him in three days if the United States didn't meet the group's demands, which weren't specified. He was kidnapped in September 2013 from Sanaa.

The news of the failed rescue comes after a suspected U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed nine alleged al Qaeda militants early Saturday, a Yemeni security official told the AP before news of Somers' death. The drone struck at dawn in Yemen's southern Shabwa province, hitting a suspected militant hideout, the official said. The official did not elaborate and spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief journalists.

Later Saturday, tribal leaders said they saw helicopters flying over an area called Wadi Abdan in Shabwa province.

American authorities rarely discuss their drone strike campaign in Yemen. The strikes are despised by many in Yemen due to civilian casualties, legitimizing for many the attacks on American interests. At least six suspected militants were killed in an airstrike in the same province last month.

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."

In a statement, Somers' father, Michael, also called his son "a good friend of Yemen and the Yemeni people" and asked for his safe release.

Korkie was kidnapped in the Yemeni city of Taiz in May, along with his wife Yolande. His wife later was released returned to South Africa. Gift of the Givers helped mediate her release. Those close to Korkie said al Qaeda militants demanded a $3 million ransom for his release.

"The psychological and emotional devastation to Yolande and her family will be compounded by the knowledge that Pierre was to be released by al Qaida tomorrow," Gift of Givers said in a statement Saturday. "A team of Abyan leaders met in Aden this morning and were preparing the final security and logistical arrangements, related to hostage release mechanisms, to bring Pierre to safety and freedom. It is even more tragic that the words we used in a conversation with Yolande at 5.59 this morning was 'The wait is almost over.'"

In a statement Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby acknowledged for the first time that a mysterious U.S. raid last month had sought to rescue Somers but that he turned out not to be at the site. The U.S. considers Yemen's al Qaeda branch to be the world's most dangerous arm of the group as it has been linked to several failed attacks on the U.S. homeland.

Kirby did not elaborate on the joint U.S-Yemeni operation to free Somers, saying details remained classified. However, officials have said the raid targeted a remote al Qaeda safe haven in a desert region near the Saudi border. Eight captives - including Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian - were freed. Somers, a Briton and four others had been moved days earlier.

Somers was kidnapped in September 2013 as he left a supermarket in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, said Fakhri al-Arashi, chief editor of the National Yemen, where Somers worked as a copy editor and a freelance photographer during the 2011 uprising in Yemen.

Somers, who was born in Britain, earned a bachelor's degree in creative writing while attending Beloit College in Wisconsin from 2004 through 2007.

"He really wanted to understand the world," said Shawn Gillen, an English professor and chairman of Beloit College's journalism program who had Gillen as a student.

Fuad Al Kadas, who called Somers one of his best friends, said Somers spent time in Egypt before finding work in Yemen. Somers started teaching English at a Yemen school but quickly established himself as a one of the few foreign photographers in the country, he said.

"He is a great man with a kind heart who really loves the Yemeni people and the country," Al Kadas wrote in an email from Yemen. He said he last saw Somers the day before he was kidnapped.

"He was so dedicated in trying to help change Yemen's future, to do good things for the people that he didn't leave the country his entire time here," Al Kadas wrote.

[mystery-ak]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/06/Obama-Defends-Authorizing-Failed-Mission-To-Rescue-Luke-Somers

OBAMA DEFENDS AUTHORIZING FAILED MISSION TO RESCUE LUKE SOMERS

[mystery-ak]

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/hostages-al-Qaida-Luke-Somers-Israel/2014/12/05/id/611312/

 Paul Vallely: Lack of 'Good Intelligence' Doomed Rescue Attempt

Friday, 05 Dec 2014 11:29 AM

By Melissa Clyne
 

The military works dutifully to keep tabs on American hostages taken captive in the Middle East, but rescue attempts rely on fluid intelligence and aren't always successful, retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely said Friday on "America’s Forum."

Vallely was speaking to the Newsmax TV program about the unsuccessful rescue attempt of American hostage Luke Somers, a journalist who is being held by al-Qaida in Yemen.

"They're tracked very carefully and a lot of that information then will go to the Special Ops command and the Delta Force operators who usually go in to try to extract or save these individuals," Vallely said.

"But it has to be based on very good intelligence and locations so they can get in there covertly and snatch that individual, bring them back, and in this case evidently the targeting information wasn't quite correct."

Al-Qaida Arabian Peninsula is for all intents and purposes the same al-Qaida operating in other nations, Vallely said, noting that there’s "no delineation other than their names.

"They seem to take on different names and morph into something else depending on where they're at, but they're all connected ideology. They're Islamic radicals, they intend to associate and also expand the caliphate not only in North Africa, but they're attempting to do it in the Sinai, of course as well as up in Iraq, Iran, and that whole area.

"So they're on the move, they're on the offensive, and that's why we've got to be better at us being on the offensive, tracking them down, destroying them wherever they are."

Vallely said he does not think the United States is coordinating with Iran on any involvement in Iraq.

"I don't think so because the United States still tracks via satellite and other intelligence gathering operations in that area and they would know in that air space of any air coming in there, commercial or military, and they would be able to track it immediately and identify where those aircraft are coming from," he said.

"So we would have known any airspace violations or it could have had the tacit approval of some of the Iraqis."

The Iranians may be attempting to "continue to be the hegemonic power in the Middle East," he said.

The relationship between the U.S. and Israel "befuddles" Vallely, who said the White House has taken every opportunity to snub Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and directly oppose Israel’s policies regarding Iran.

Better, the general said, would be figuring out what reinforcement the U.S. can provide Israel "in case there is a launch by Iran ... [which has vowed to] destroy Israel and ensure Iran knows that anything they attempt to do, that the United States and Israel will come down on them very hard and they will absolutely put them in, our coalition over there, could put them in a serious situation that could destroy Iran as far as their government is concerned.

"If you don't put the fear of Allah in them or the fear of God somehow, they don't react to anything," Vallely said.

[olde north church]

Failed rescue mission, huh?  Barry really has Jimmy beat.

[Atomic Cow]

And of course the entire narrative is how great Obama is because took this, "brave, decisive action" but it failed because of forces beyond his control.