WASHINGTON — An American kidnapped more than a year ago in Yemen was killed during a U.S.-led military operation to rescue him, the Pentagon announced Saturday.
Luke Somers, 33, a freelance photographer who’d been held by Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula since September 2013, was shot by his captors, the Pentagon said. A South African teacher, Pierre Korkie, who was being held with him, also was killed as were four Yemeni soldiers, the Yemeni government said.
No U.S. military casualties were announced.
It was the third failed effort by U.S. special forces to rescue a hostage held by terrorists since July, a reminder that special operations such as the one that resulted in the death of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden are incredibly risky undertakings that are as likely to fail as they are to succeed.
The operation began at around 4 a.m. local time in the Nisab district of Yemen’s Shabwa province, a rugged area that has long been outside the control of Yemen’s central government.
A team of about 40 special-forces operatives landed in two Osprey vertical-takeoff aircraft a few miles from the village of Abadan, where officials were “pretty certain” Somers and Korkie were being held in a building, a senior Defense Department official said. The U.S. team then walked to the site, the official said, in an effort to maintain an element of surprise.
The planned time on the ground for the operation was 20 minutes, the official said.
U.S. officials were still trying to piece together Saturday what happened next, but before the Americans were able to mount their attack, the kidnappers became aware of their presence. Gunfire broke out, and the captors shot Somers and Korkie. U.S. forces shot and killed the roughly seven captors and took Somers and Korkie, who were wounded but still alive, back to the Ospreys, the defense official said, and took off.
The aircraft landed on the U.S.S. Makin Island, which was stationed in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen’s coast and includes a hospital. Somers and Korkie were pronounced dead on the ship, the defense official said.
Al Jazeera quoted a Yemeni journalist as saying that the captors had attempted to escape with their hostages when American forces arrived. They shot the hostages when they found themselves surrounded, the news agency reported.
A South African charity, Gift of the Givers, said that it had been negotiating for Korkie’s release and that he was expected to be freed Sunday, but the claim could not be independently confirmed. Korkie’s wife, who was taken hostage with him, was released in January.
In a statement, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said President Barack Obama had ordered the rescue operation on Friday. He said both Somers and the South African were “murdered by AQAP terrorists during the course of the operation.”
“On behalf of the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, I extend our condolences, thoughts, and prayers to their families and loved ones,” Hagel said.
Hagel said that “several of the AQAP terrorists” were killed, and reports from Yemen said that at least 10 people had died. Tribal officials in Shabwa province, where the raid occurred, said that the dead included more than half a dozen civilians in addition to at least two AQAP fighters.
Shabwa has been the site of frequent air strikes by U.S. drones.
It was the second attempt by the United States to free Somers, a graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin. Last month, U.S. special-operations forces and Yemeni troops raided a remote area in neighboring Hadramawt province in an effort to free the American photojournalist. While the raid managed to free eight hostages, Somers had been moved by the time American commandos arrived.
After that rescue operation, AQAP released a video of Somers on Thursday in which it threatened to kill him unless the group’s unspecified demands were met. The video effectively broke a year-old media blackout regarding the photojournalist’s kidnapping that had been in place since he was seized by armed men in front of a supermarket in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, in September 2013.
In July, U.S. forces also failed to find American journalist James Foley when they attempted a rescue in northern Syria. The Islamic State later said that Foley and other captives had been moved a few days before the rescue effort. Foley’s beheading was shown in a video the Islamic State posted on the Internet Aug. 19.
Those failed attempts were a reminder that even before groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State began making a business out of taking hostages, the success rate for rescues was only 50 percent.
Such operations are fraught with risk. Intelligence about where the hostage is being held is likely to be incomplete or inaccurate. The hostages may be moved by the time the operation is organized and executed. The captors might kill the hostage during the rescue. The rescuers themselves could be killed or accidentally kill the hostages.
In much publicized successes, such as the rescue of an American sea captain by U.S. Navy SEALs off Somalia in 2009, there is little question about where the targets of the rescue are. In the case of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the compound that was raided had been under observation for months before two helicopters of Navy SEALs swooped in – and even then one of the choppers crash landed, nearly aborting the mission.
In more recent cases, U.S. efforts have been hampered, some say, by its own policies. Because the U.S. refuses to pay ransom, it has closed the door to communicating with those holding Americans in places like Iraq, Syria and Yemen, cutting off a source of intelligence that could improve the chances of a rescue operation, say those involved in such cases or demanding a review of the policy.
“Just addressing the captors, the enticement of paying, even if you have no intention of paying, draws them in,” said a senior congressional aide whose office has dealt with the families of missing hostages. “It keeps them alive.”
The last known successful hostage rescue was in 2012, when U.S. special operators swooped in on Somali insurgents holding an American and a Dane.
The Obama administration is conducting a review of hostage policy, spurred by Foley’s execution. The White House has said the review will not look at the ransom policy.
The review was spurred by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who has repeatedly called for changes to the policy. Among Hunter’s recommendations is for one top ranking government official to be assigned to each case of an American being held hostage to coordinate agency efforts.
There are currently several dozen Americans being held around the world, according to Hunter’s office.
(Baron reported from London. Mark Seibel in Washington contributed to this report.)
