British-born U.S. photojournalist and South African aid worker executed by Al Qaeda

-

banner
A British-born U.S. photojournalist and a South African aid worker held hostage in Yemen by al Qaeda were '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 US commandos carried out a dramatic rescue bid in the southern Shabwa province late on Friday night - the second attempted extraction by special forces in as many months.
Another hostage, South African aid worker Pierre Korkie, was also killed during the operation - a day before he was due to be released.
Outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel confirmed his death this morning during a trip to Afghanistan.
During a press conference he announced that 1,000 more US troops than expected will be stationed in the country next year following a spike in Taliban attacks. 
Mr Somers was badly wounded when commandos found him and he died from his injuries by the time he had been flown to a naval ship. 

Mr Somers' sister Lucy Somers told Associated Press that she learned of her brother's death from FBI agents at 5am this morning. 'We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace,' she said from London. 
An Osprey aircraft took a team of U.S. Navy SEALS to the location, which was close to the site where a previous rescue mission had taken place, officials told CNN.
A gun fight  is understood to have unfolded before the badly injured hostages were taken away on the aircraft, the report says.
Mr Somers was kidnapped in September 2013 as he left a supermarket in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, said Fakhri al-Arashi, chief editor of the National Yemen
The hostage worked at the paper as a copy editor and a freelance photographer during the 2011 uprising in Yemen.
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.
US president Barack Obama described Mr Somers' murder as 'barbaric' in a statement this morning.
'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 said.
President Obama said he authorised the raid on Friday to rescue Somers and other hostages held in the same location. He said the United States had used every tool at its disposal to secure Somers' release since his capture 15 months ago.
He also thanked the Yemen government for its support. It is understood that the U.S. personnel who carried out the raid are safe. 

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/


Comments

Post a Comment

Message Sent

Popular posts from this blog

Meet the world's hottest transgender - Amiyah Scott

-
Image
Yep, all that used to be male. Her name is Amiyah Scott, but she was born ‘Arthur Scott’ in New York in 1988. She's a transgender model and make-up artist. Arthur started the process of turning into a woman when he was 17. He got breast augmentation, booty shots, light filler in the cheeks etc etc.  by linda ikeji       
Read more

Man shot dead by police officer who tried to jump fuel queue in Lagos; police identifies officer responsible

-
Image
  A police officer has gunned down a Lagos resident who prevented him from jumping the queue to buy fuel at a Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) filling station at Obalende in the Ikoyi area of Lagos State.    Toheeb Eniafe was in the queue to get petrol on Wednesday evening, May 1, when two men, said to be police officers, attempted to drive into the station to buy petrol even though they were not in the queue to get the product.  This attempt by the police officers to jump the queue was met with stiff resistance from people in the queue who had been waiting for hours.   Eniafe was at the forefront of the resistance, telling the men to join the queue like everyone else.   This degenerated into a physical fight and one of the men shot Eniafe before fleeing the scene.  An angry mob was said to have chased and caught up with one of the officers but he later escaped after firing shots in the air.  On Thursday, May 2, the La...
Read more

Ugandan President Museveni claims IMF, World Bank and Western countries purposely keep African countries in perpetual poverty (video)

-
Image
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has claimed that the West and various international monetary lenders keep Africa in continuous poverty. Speaking at the World Bank’s International Development Association summit for African Heads of state, held in Nairobi, Kenya, Museveni took a bold swipe at world leaders saying that most of Africa’s problems predicted over 60 years ago were a result of philosophical, ideological, and strategic economic mistakes. He claimed that a fundamental African problem is that aid from the World Bank and other Western bodies was majorly for profiteering. “The crisis which is in Africa today is because of philosophical, ideological, and strategic economic mistakes which we have been talking about since the 1960s. It is not an accident when you see the crisis in many African countries, the collapse of States. We predicted this in the 1960s – philosophical, ideological, and strategic mistakes. I don’t have time to amplify each one but I was very happy to hear the...
Read more