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Al Qaeda Vows to Kill U.S. Hostage

GRIM FUTURE

Luke Somers pleads for help in new recording.

Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate Wednesday night showed on camera for the first time American hostage Luke Somers, who officials say was the objective of a U.S. rescue attempt last week. The terror group threatened to kill Somers in three days if President Obama doesn’t “meet our demands.” The 33-year-old photojournalist and interpreter was abducted in the Yemeni capital Sana’a some 14 months ago. He appears at the end of the new video and makes a 30-second statement pleading for help. “I’m looking for any help that can get me out of this situation. I’m certain that my life is in danger. So as I sit here now, I ask if anything can be done, please let it be done. Thank you very much,” Somers says. The three-minute tape begins with Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, a senior al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula official, seated at a desk and holding a sheaf of papers that he slowly reads from. He voices a host of grievances over U.S. counterterrorism operations in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, and Pakistan.

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