US Commandos Took Part in Yemen Hostage Rescue Raid

American Journalist Was Sought, But Not Recovered

New information has emerged about a hostage rescue in Yemen’s Hadrawmut Province, which freed eight people being held by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Pentagon officials are now privately confirming that US ground troops took part in the raid, two dozen American Special Forces. Details of their involvement in the nominally secret mission are not being disclosed yet.

Yemen initially claimed that an American was among the freed, but that turns out not to have been the case, with six Yemenis, a Saudi, and an Ethiopian recovered in the raid against AQAP.

Officials are saying that an American journalist and a British national were among those hostages sought in the raid, but that neither of them was actually recovered, and they were believed to have been relocated by AQAP before the raid.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.