{"id":56900,"date":"2014-12-07T08:20:24","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T13:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=56900"},"modified":"2014-12-07T08:20:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T13:20:24","slug":"details-of-failed-rescue-attempt-emerge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=56900","title":{"rendered":"Details of failed rescue attempt emerge"},"content":{"rendered":"

We talked a bit yesterday about the failed rescue attempt of Ryan Somers, and now, as time passes we get some of the details of the raid. Chief Tango sends us a link from ABC News<\/a> which tells us the raiding party, which included Yemeni government troops, was fairly large;<\/p>\n

In the dead of night, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs landed a little more than six miles away from a compound in the Shabwah province of Yemen where U.S. officials believed an affiliate of al Qaeda was holding American journalist Luke Somers captive.<\/p>\n

About 110 yards away, after making their way through the rugged terrain on foot, the team of 40 was spotted and the al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) fighters began firing wildly at the SEALs, according to a military official. One of the AQAP fighters ran into the compound as the firefight continued outside, then quickly came back out.<\/p>\n

When the SEALs secured and entered the compound, they found Somers, 33, and another captive, South African Pierre Korkie, had been shot. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Forty was about four times larger than I would have thought the force would number. Fox News<\/a> says that the South Africans had successfully negotiated for the release of Pierre Korkie, who was being held with Somers;<\/p>\n

“A team of Abyan (Yemeni) leaders met in Aden [Saturday] morning and were preparing the final security and logistical arrangements, related to hostage release mechanisms, to bring Pierre to safety and freedom,” Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers. “It is even more tragic that the words we used in a conversation with Yolande at 5:59 [Saturday] morning was: ‘The wait is almost over.'”<\/p>\n

The Associated Press, citing sources close to the negotiations, reported that the militants had initially demanded a $3 million ransom for Korkie’s release. Although that demand was dropped, the kidnappers did insist on the “facilitation fee,” according to the aid group. The undisclosed amount was raised by Korkie’s family and friends, according to the South African Press Agency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like someone said in the comments yesterday, I think I’d rather be summarily shot than to have my gruesome death filmed for propaganda, but then I wouldn’t be captured anyway. Always save one bullet for yourself – or at least don’t get yourself in the position where you’re the star of an al Qaeda film. Stay home and watch the war on TV, because as this makes it obvious, the government can’t always help. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We talked a bit yesterday about the failed rescue attempt of Ryan Somers, and now, as … Details of failed rescue attempt emerge<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}