December 08, 2014

Yemen: Did U.S. Surveil Hostage Negotiators To Hit Hostage Takers?

More questions arise about the recless U.S. rescue attempt in Yemen that killed a nearly free hostage as well as at least nine others.

The U.S. claimed it was trying to free Luke Somer because AlQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a mixture of tribal Yemeni and Jihadis, threatened to kill him.

But the anonymous U.S. officials and the media neglect to explain that AQAP had so far never killed a foreign hostage. It made a threat to kill Luke Somer only after an earlier botched U.S. raid on November 25. That raid ironically freed seven AlQaeda fighters held by their own group under suspicion of being spies. The parents of Luke Somer do not believe that AQAP would have carried through with its threat to kill Somer:

Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAB) posted a video online on Thursday, threatening to kill the American citizen within three days but his stepmother Penny Bearman and half-sister Lucy Somers indicated they still had hope because previous threats had not been carried out. Bearman, 55, of Deal, Kent, told the Times they were “quite angry because if there had not been a rescue attempt he would still be alive”. “We are sure Luke would have given support to the ongoing discussions [to secure his release] in Yemen rather than the conflict approach. There had been threats before that had not been carried out,” she said.

A second foreign hostage, Pierre Korkie, was killed in the recent rescue attempt. Eight Yemeni civilians were also killed. Korkie was supposed to be freed the very same day due to a ransom payment. There have long been negotiations between the hostage takers and the charity Gift of the Givers that employed Korkie. The U.S. now claims it was unaware of negotiations for his imminent release. That does not sound plausible to me. The NSA is certainly listening to every call in Yemen that might be of interest.

Iona Craig, a journalist in Yemen who knew Korkie, does not believe this either:

"US didn't know about talks on freeing S.African killed in Yemen raid" - Blatant lie. Most widely publicised talks in history of kidnapping

There is another data point that makes me believe that the U.S. not only did know about the negotiations and that Korkie was about to be freed but that it used this information to carry out the raid itself.

A NYT report describes the long negotiations between the charity and the hostage takers:

After months of silence, Gift of the Givers had a breakthrough in August, when tribal leaders sent a delegation, acting on behalf of the charity, into the remote badlands. The assembled Qaeda fighters took a vote on reducing the ransom, and half the jihadists voted “yes” while half voted “no,” Mr. Sooliman said. In October, the abductors said that they would accept $700,000. The family, which had already said it could not afford $3 million, still did not have enough money. In November, the tribal leaders went back to meet with Qaeda members. The car was hit by a drone strike, killing the mediators, according to Mr. Sooliman. “We thought it was over,” he said. But that tragedy appears to have spurred Al Qaeda to agree to a lower sum, which it promised to use in part to reimburse families of the dead tribal negotiators. On Nov. 26, Mr. Korkie’s abductors sent word they would accept $200,000, to be split with the tribe members. By Saturday, the money raised by Mrs. Korkie from friends and other donors had been delivered to Yemen. The cars were preparing to leave.

In November a U.S. drone hit tribal mediators who were trying to get Korkie freed. How did the U.S. know about these mediators if not by listening to their communication? In early December the cars are ready to leave to finally free Korkie and the U.S. military hits again at the very same moment.

It is not plausible with all the national and international communication going on between the charity, the parents of the hostage, the mediators and the hostage takers that the U.S. was unaware of all this.

In November it hit the mediators with a drone when they were going to meet the hostage takers. This time it hit the hostages right when the mediators were taking off to meet them. At least ten innocent people were killed with this last raid.

The U.S. has some explaining to do. How did it detect the hostage takers if not by following the mediators communications? Why did it decide to do those two raids on November 25 and December 6 when there was, at least at the first date, no imminent threat to the civilian hostages lives? What was the real purpose and target of these military attacks?

There are still rumors that AQAP nabbed a U.S. "trainer" during a raid on Al Anad airbase in November. Was that captured U.S. soldier the real target of the failed raids? Or what about the Marine Travis Barton AQAP claims to have captured during Saturday's raid?

Posted by b on December 8, 2014 at 13:31 UTC | Permalink

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