U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement he ordered the raid that killed hostages\u00a0Pierre Korkie and\u00a0Luke Somers.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0American photojournalist and South African teacher held by al-Qaida militants in Yemen have been killed in a failed U.S. rescue attempt, authorities said Saturday.<\/p>\n
Information \u201cindicated that Luke\u2019s life was in imminent danger,\u201d Obama said. \u201cBased on this assessment, and as soon as there was reliable intelligence and an operational plan, I authorized a rescue attempt. \u2026 I also authorized the rescue of any other hostages held in the same location as Luke.\u201d<\/p>\n
The aid group Gift of Givers later identified the second hostage as South African teacher Pierre Korkie, who the group said was to be released Sunday. They said he was to be flown out of Yemen \u201cunder diplomatic cover, then to meet with family members in a \u2018safe\u2019 country (and) fly to South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lucy Somers, the photojournalist\u2019s sister, told The Associated Press that she and her father learned of her 33-year-old brother\u2019s death from FBI agents at 0500 GMT (12 a.m. EST) Saturday.<\/p>\n
American troops\u00a0“shot the hostage before or during the attack,\u201d\u00a0Yemen\u2019s national security chief, Maj. Gen. Ali al-Ahmadi said at a conference in Manama, Bahrain. \u201cHe [Somers] was freed but unfortunately he was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The news of the failed rescue comes after a suspected U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed nine alleged militants early Saturday, a Yemeni security official said before news of Somers\u2019 death. The drone struck at dawn in Yemen\u2019s 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\u2019t authorized to brief journalists.<\/p>\n
Later Saturday, tribal leaders said they saw helicopters flying over an area called Wadi Abdan in Shabwa province.<\/p>\n
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. A non-governmental group, Gift of the Givers, helped mediate her release. Those close to Korkie said al-Qaida militants demanded a $3 million ransom for his release.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d Gift of Givers said in a statement Saturday. \u201cA 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 \u2018The wait is almost over.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Members of a South African family was killed in Afghanistan earlier, just ahead of a donor conference.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement he ordered the raid that killed hostages\u00a0Pierre Korkie and\u00a0Luke Somers. The\u00a0American photojournalist and South African teacher held by al-Qaida militants in Yemen have been killed in a failed U.S. rescue attempt, authorities said Saturday. Information \u201cindicated that Luke\u2019s life was in imminent danger,\u201d Obama said. \u201cBased on … Continue reading “SA hostage killed in failed US rescue attempt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[10666,10667,10665,10664,1121],"class_list":["post-17123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-drone-strikes","tag-failed-rescue","tag-hostage","tag-pierre-korkie","tag-yemen"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17124,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17123\/revisions\/17124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}