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SEALs Team Six frees U.S., Dane hostages in Somalia
MOGADISHU, Somalia (CBS News) – U.S. Navy SEALs parachuted into Somalia in a daring nighttime raid Monday night, freed an American and a Danish hostage, and killed nine pirates in a mission President Obama coyly referenced before his State of the Union speech.
Two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted, were freed in the operation. Buchanan, 32, and Thisted, 60, had been working with a de-mining unit of the Danish Refugee Council when they were kidnapped in October. The two aid workers appear to have been kidnapped by criminals — sometimes referred to as pirates — and not by Somalia’s al Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabab.
Obama referred to the mission before his State of the Union address in Washington Tuesday night. As he entered the House chamber in the U.S. Capitol, he pointed at Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in the crowd and said, “Good job tonight.” [VIDEO]
CAMP LEMONNIER IN DJIBOUTI
U.S. helicopters landed at the compound after the raid was underway and later flew the hostages to a U.S. military base called Camp Lemonnier in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. Panetta visited Camp Lemonier just over a month ago, A key U.S. ally in this region, Djibouti has the only U.S. base in sub-Saharan Africa. It hosts the military’s Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
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The timing of the raid may have been made more urgent by a medical condition. The Danish Refugee Council had been trying to work with Somali elders to win the hostages’ freedom but had found little success. “One of the hostages has a disease that was very serious and that had to be solved,” Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal told Denmark’s TV2 channel.
- Al Qaeda franchises or allied affiliates in Somalia, the Maghreb, Yemen, and Afghanistan/Pakistan [pdf]
- Yemen crisis – al-Qaeda gaining ground, seize town plus BBC Video
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