AFP/Sanaa

An American and a South African were killed yesterday as US forces tried to free hostages from Al Qaeda in Yemen, with President Barack Obama accusing the militants of “barbaric murder”.
Obama said he had authorised the joint attempt involving US special forces to rescue American photojournalist Luke Somers because his life was believed to be “in imminent danger”.
South African teacher Pierre Korkie was also killed, just a day before he was due to be freed after more than a year in captivity, said the charity that had negotiated his release.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had threatened on Thursday to execute Somers, 33, who was kidnapped 15 months ago in Sanaa. It gave Washington three days to meet unspecified demands.
“The callous disregard for Luke’s life is more proof of the depths of AQAP’s depravity,” Obama said in a statement.
In May 2013, Al Qaeda seized Korkie and his wife Yolande, who was released in January. The couple had worked as teachers in Yemen for four years.
The Gift of Givers charity said logistical arrangements had already been put in place to fly Korkie, 57, out of Yemen under diplomatic cover after negotiations.
“The psychological and emotional devastation to Yolande and her family will be compounded by the knowledge that Pierre was to be released by Al Qaeda tomorrow,” it said.
“It is even more tragic that the words we used in a conversation with Yolande at 5:59 this morning was ‘the wait is almost over.’”
“Three days ago we told her ‘Pierre will be home for Christmas.” We certainly did not mean it in the manner it has unfolded.”
Details of the operation were limited, but a tribal leader said soldiers parachuted into the area in the southeastern province of Shabwa.
Residents reported heavy clashes, and Yemen said 10 militants were killed and four of its own men wounded.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said both hostages were “murdered by the AQAP terrorists during the course of the operation”, which he described as “extremely complicated”.
Imtiaz Sooliman, head of the charity, said US forces intervened to prevent Al Qaeda from decapitating an American hostage.
He said he had spoken to his representative in Yemen on Friday about information Al Qaeda planned to execute a US hostage.
“I said, that is my greatest fear... and that before they do it, American troops are going to attack and Pierre is going to die in the operation.”
He said the Americans were probably under pressure from the families of the hostages to act.
“No one can be blamed for that; it is a hostage-taking, a crisis situation and each one works for his interests,” he said.
A State Department official said “we assessed that there were two hostages at this location,” including Somers. “We did not know who the second hostage was.”
Obama said that since Somers was abducted, Washington had been using “every tool at our disposal” to try to secure his release.
“Luke was a photojournalist who sought through his images to convey the lives of Yemenis to the outside world,” Obama added.
“He came to Yemen in peace and was held against his will and threatened by a despicable terrorist organisation.”
Somers’s brother Jordan said he did not know why he was taken hostage.
“He’s a good person and he’s only been trying to do good things for the Yemeni population,” Jordan said in a video earlier this week with his mother Paula.  
The United States has said American and Yemeni forces already tried unsuccessfully to rescue Somers last month.
According to Yemen’s defence ministry, Al Qaeda moved hostages, including Somers, a Briton and a South African, days before in southeastern Hadramout province.
The Briton’s whereabouts remain unknown.
The United States has a long-standing policy of not negotiating with hostage-takers or paying ransoms. Obama has recently ordered a review of the policy.
Reporters Without Borders, reacting to yesterday’s news, urged Washington to “explore all alternatives to the military option and to make every effort to guarantee the safety of the civilians involved”.
Yemen is a key US ally in the fight against Al Qaeda, allowing Washington to conduct a long-standing drone war against the group on its territory.
AQAP is considered by Washington to be the most dangerous affiliate of Al Qaeda.
AQAP’s threat followed the murder since August of five Western hostages by the Islamic State militant group, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq.
US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, American aid worker Peter Kassig and British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines were all beheaded.
Al Qaeda has exploited instability in impoverished Yemen since a 2011 uprising forced president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.