In this Monday, Feb. 11, 2013 photo, Luke Somers, 33, an American photojournalist who was kidnapped over a year ago by al-Qaida, poses for a picture during a parade marking the second anniversary of the revolution in Sanaa, Yemen.
Family: We didn't sign off on rescue try
01:26 - Source: CNN AP

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U.S. hostage Luke Somers died during an attempt to rescue him in Yemen Friday

Relatives say they did not know of the rescue bid until his captors released a video

They say they were not asked to sign off on the attempt, which some condemned

CNN  — 

The family of American photojournalist Luke Somers, who was held hostage and then killed by al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, did not know of U.S. efforts to rescue him until the terrorist group released a video of him pleading for his life last week, family members told CNN on Monday.

Somers and South African Pierre Korkie, a teacher, were fatally shot amid a failed U.S. military raid to rescue them Friday.

Lawmakers defend failed hostage rescue mission

The family was not asked to sign off on the U.S. effort to free Somers, his stepmother Penny Bearman and sister Lucy Somers said.

Some family members condemned the rescue bid as endangering life, though the general feeling is that more should have been done sooner, they said.

“We feel that Luke’s stance would have been that more discussion should have taken place between the countries concerned and that these crises should be solved with more dialogue and less conflict,” Bearman and Somers said.

The hostage takers did not communicate directly with Somers’ family, so if there were any specific demands, they were given to the U.S. government in private, the two women said.

Somers, 33, was born in the United Kingdom.

Read: Profile of slain hostage

UK Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood responded to an urgent question in Britain’s House of Commons Monday on the failed rescue.

“It was for the Americans to make a judgment on this,” Ellwood said. “It was decided that the threat to life was imminent and therefore action needed to be taken.”

He reiterated that Britain did not negotiate with hostage takers, saying that the UK government believed that paying ransoms “simply encourages more hostages to be taken.”

Like many journalists of his generation, Somers traveled to the Middle East to tell the stories of the region’s strife and the people affected by it. His friends said the Arab Spring uprising in 2011 was a motivator.

He was taken hostage in September 2013.

A November raid by U.S. and Yemeni special forces freed eight other hostages, but not Somers. The militants subsequently issued demands and a threat to kill him.

Read: Opinion – why hostage rescues fail

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Somers was “the third American freelance journalist to die this year while being held captive, after James Foley and Steven Sotloff were murdered in Syria.”

The organization also pointed out that the “raid is at least the third to be launched by U.S. special forces in an attempt to rescue American journalists held hostage in Syria and Yemen. All of the raids failed to rescue the journalists.”

Pierre Korkie was kidnapped along with his wife in Taiz province in May last year as they returned to South Africa for his father’s funeral, the non-governmental organization Gift of the Givers said.

AQAP freed Yolande Korkie in January after negotiations with Gift of the Givers and had been due to release her husband Sunday, the group said on its site.

Read: South African taught poor children