An American journalist held for more than a year by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed during a rescue attempt by United States commandos late Friday, according to a senior U.S. official.The official said that the journalist, Luke Somers, was apparently shot by his captors as the raid occurred and was badly injured when the commandos reached him. By the time Somers was flown to a U.S. naval ship in the region, he had died from his injuries.
Somers, a freelance journalist, was seized in Sana in September 2013. Last month, U.S. commandos and Yemeni counterterrorism soldiers made an unsuccessful attempt to rescue him in a remote province.
On Wednesday, the Yemeni extremist group that was holding Somers threatened to kill him by the end of the week.