SANA, Yemen — An American journalist held for more than a year by Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen was killed during a rescue attempt by United States commandos late Friday, a senior United States official said.
Early reports of the overnight raid were sketchy. The official said that the journalist, Luke Somers, 33, was apparently shot by his captors as the raid unfolded and was badly wounded when the commandos reached him. By the time Mr. Somers was flown to a United States naval ship in the region, he had died from his injuries, the official said Saturday.
There was no immediate comment from the Obama administration about the raid, which took place in the southern Yemeni province of Shabwa. When asked about the operation at a security conference in Bahrain, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of United States Central Command, declined to comment.
Mr. Somers’ sister, Lucy Somers, told The Associated Press on Saturday that she had been notified by the FBI of her brother’s death. “We ask that all of Luke’s family members be allowed to mourn in peace,†she said.
Mr. Somers, a freelance journalist, was abducted in the Yemeni capital, Sana, in September 2013. Last month, United States commandos and Yemeni counterterrorism troops made an unsuccessful attempt to rescue him in a remote Yemeni province.
On Wednesday, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni extremist group that was holding Mr. Somers, threatened to kill him by the end of the week if its demands were not met. In the video, a leader of the group spoke of the November raid and warned the United States not to carry out any similar operations.
There was no immediate word on the fate of other hostages who were believed to have been held with Mr. Somers, including citizens of Britain, Turkey and South Africa.
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