Deaths of Somers and Korkie in Yemen underscore dangers of missions to rescue hostages

The building where US photojournalist Luke Somers lived, in the the old city of Sanaa. Sommers was killed during a failed attempt by US special forces to free him from Al-Qaeda militants. Photo: AFP

Monday, December 8, 2014

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The death of American photojournalist Luke Somers in a special forces rescue operation in Yemen was a reminder that such high-risk missions are as likely to fail as to succeed.

US defence officials were trying to determine what went wrong before dawn on Saturday when about 40 special operators converged on a building in Yemen's rugged Shabwa province on a mission that had been designed to surprise.

Instead, the kidnappers became aware of the Americans before they could attack, gunfire broke out, and Somers and a South African hostage, teacher Pierre Korkie, were fatally wounded.

It was the third US-led hostage raid since July that failed to rescue its target alive, underscoring the danger Americans, who have been taken captive by al-Qaeda-inspired groups, face. Because the US government is unwilling to bargain for their freedom, a military rescue becomes the hostages' only hope.

A July 4 raid in northern Syria failed to locate American journalist James Foley, who was subsequently beheaded by the Islamic State, the first of three American hostages killed by the Islamic State. Late last month, US special forces rescued eight Yemenis from a cave in Yemen's Hadramawt province, but Somers, the target of the raid, was not there.

A South African charity, Givers of the Gift, said it had been negotiating for Korkie's freedom in return for a US$3 million ransom, and there were reports that he was to have been released yesterday. Givers of the Gift founder Imtiaz Sooliman said a South African police official who was in Yemen to help arrange Korkie's release had notified him of the teacher's death.

Yemen's national security chief, Major General Ali al Ahmadi, linked the timing of the raid, which US President Barack Obama ordered on Friday, to a video released on Thursday by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In the video Somers pleaded for help while a leader of the group threatened him with death if the group's unspecified demands were not met.

How the US government should deal with hostages has been the subject of controversy since the death of Foley and that of two other Americans, Steven Sotloff, a freelance journalist from Miami who was beheaded in a video posted on September 2, and Peter Kassig, an aid worker from Indiana whose bloody head was displayed in an Islamic State video posted on November 16.

The three men had been held during their captivity with citizens of European nations who were released after their governments had agreed to the demands for ransom payments.

In a letter to Congressman Duncan Hunter last month, the Obama administration said that it was reviewing the way it handles the cases of American hostages, though White House officials emphasised that the longtime US prohibition on paying ransom was not going to be under review.

But others question the wisdom of a blanket prohibition on such negotiations.

"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 trying to help the families of missing hostages.

"It keeps them alive," he said.

The last known successful hostage rescue by the United States was in 2012, when special operators swooped in on Somali insurgents holding an American and a Dane.

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