The family of American
photojournalist Luke Somers, who was held hostage and then killed by al Qaeda's
affiliate in Yemen, did not know of U.S. efforts to rescue him until the
terrorist group released a video of him pleading for his life last week, family
members told CNN on Monday.
Somers and South African Pierre
Korkie, a teacher, were fatally shot amid a failed U.S. military raid
to rescue them Friday.
Lawmakers defend failed hostage rescue
mission
The family was not asked to sign off
on the U.S. effort to free Somers, his stepmother Penny Bearman and sister Lucy
Somers said.
Some family members condemned the
rescue bid as endangering life, though the general feeling is that more should
have been done sooner, they said.
"We feel that Luke's stance
would have been that more discussion should have taken place between the
countries concerned and that these crises should be solved with more dialogue
and less conflict," Bearman and Somers said.
The hostage takers did not
communicate directly with Somers' family, so if there were any specific
demands, they were given to the U.S. government in private, the two women said.
Somers, 33, was born in the United
Kingdom.
UK Foreign Office Minister Tobias
Ellwood responded to an urgent question in Britain's House of Commons Monday on
the failed rescue.
"It was for the Americans to
make a judgment on this," Ellwood said. "It was decided that the
threat to life was imminent and therefore action needed to be taken."
He reiterated that Britain did not
negotiate with hostage takers, saying that the UK government believed that
paying ransoms "simply encourages more hostages to be taken."
Like many journalists of his
generation, Somers traveled to the Middle East to tell the stories of the
region's strife and the people affected by it. His friends said the Arab Spring
uprising in 2011 was a motivator.
He was taken hostage in September
2013.
A November raid by U.S. and Yemeni
special forces freed eight other hostages, but not Somers. The militants
subsequently issued demands and a threat to kill him.
Read: Opinion -- why hostage rescues fail
The Committee to Protect Journalists
said Somers was "the third American freelance journalist to die this year
while being held captive, after James Foley and Steven Sotloff were murdered in
Syria."
The organization also pointed out
that the "raid is at least the third to be launched by U.S. special forces
in an attempt to rescue American journalists held hostage in Syria and Yemen.
All of the raids failed to rescue the journalists."
Pierre Korkie was kidnapped along
with his wife in Taiz province in May last year as they returned to South
Africa for his father's funeral, the non-governmental organization Gift of the
Givers said.
AQAP freed Yolande Korkie in January
after negotiations with Gift of the Givers and had been due to release her
husband Sunday, the group said on its site.
Image : Source
COMMENTS