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A British-born U.S. photojournalist and a South African aid worker held hostage in Yemen by al Qaeda militants have been 'murdered' in a failed rescue attempt. American citizen Luke Somers had been held hostage since September 2013 in Yemen's capital Sana'a having moved to the country two years earlier. The 33-year-old was reportedly shot by his captors as Navy SEAL Team six, made up of around 40 men, carried out a dramatic rescue bid in the Wadi Abdan region of the southern Shabwa province late on Friday night. It is the second attempted extraction by special forces in as many...

William Maclean, Reuters December 4, 2014 Al Qaeda's Yemen branch published a video purporting to show an American hostage and threatened to kill him if unspecified demands were not met. In the video, the man identified himself as Luke Somers and said he had been kidnapped well over a year ago. He was looking for "any help that can get me out of this situation". Reuters was unable to confirm the authenticity of the video, which was posted on YouTube and social media late on Wednesday and carried by SITE, an organization that monitors militant statements. The man in the...

BREAKING NEWS: The sister of American hostage Luke Somers says he was killed in a failed rescue mission in Yemen. Lucy Somers said: "We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace."

United States military and intelligence officials are still piecing together what happened early Saturday that sabotaged an attempt to rescue two hostages from al Qaeda in Yemen. Despite being ready with a roughly 40-man special operations team and days to plan the operation, U.S. photojournalist Luke Somers and South African teacher Pierre Korki both died shortly after the midnight raid. The key problem, officials told the Wall Street Journal, came when some kind of sound alerted militants who were holding the hostages that the special operations team was nearby. The militants were part of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,...

President Barack Obama said Saturday he authorized the attempt to rescue American Luke Somers in Yemen because the U.S. 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. […] The president said he “strongly condemns the barbaric murder of Luke Somers at the hands of al-Qaida terrorists” and reaffirmed that the U.S. “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...

President Obama on Saturday condemned the "barbaric murder" by al Qaeda of U.S. hostage Luke Somers in Yemen during a rescue attempt by U.S. forces. "On behalf of the American people, I offer my deepest condolences to Luke’s family and to his loved ones," he said in a statement. "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," he...