Vice President Biden called the death of Luke Somers “despicable” on Saturday, just hours after a U.S. raid failed in Yemen failed to save the American photojournalist.
{mosads}Biden, speaking at a Brookings Institution forum on U.S.-Israeli relations, said that too many journalists had lost their life in covering the conflict with Islamic militants, from Daniel Pearl more than a decade ago to James Foley and Steven Sotloff in recent months.
“I can only imagine how Luke’s parents feel today,” Biden said. “Came so close.”
In his remarks, Biden also thanked the Yemeni government for its assistance in the raid, and said that U.S. special forces “inflicted serious damage” on the militants who held Somers and a South African hostage, Pierre Korkie, who also died in the raid.
President Obama earlier called Somers’s death a “brutal murder,” and said he had approved the raid because he thought the 33-year-old’s life was in imminent danger.