Journalist Luke Somers died in a joint US-Yemeni operation in southern Yemen's Shabwa province, Reuters news agency quoted a senior official from Yemen as saying on Saturday. According to the Agence France Presse, the raid had been initially launched to free the American hostage. Ten militants reportedly died in the attack.

Earlier US media and the Associated Press reported Luke Somers' sister Lucy Somers as saying that FBI agents had informed her about her brother's death.

"We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace," she said.

However, neither Washington nor officials in Yemen have confirmed the death of the photographer, who was kidnapped from Yemen's capital Sanaa in September 2013.

Earlier rescue attempt

On Thursday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby acknowledged that the US had tried to rescue Somers in an earlier raid, but that Somers had been missing from the site. At that time, US and Yemeni soldiers managed to rescue eight captives, including Yemenis, a Saudi Arabian and an Ethiopian, but Somers and others had probably been moved.

On the same day, the group al Qaeda in Yemen, also known as the al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), released a video threatening to kill Somers in three days if the US did not meet their demands.

Following the video, Somers father, Michael, called his son "a good friend of Yemen and the Yemeni people" and begged for his release in a statement. His sister, Lucy Somers, described her brother as someone "who always believed the best in people" and asked Somers' captors to "Please let him live."

AQAP terrorists kidnappened Somers last year in September as he was leaving a supermarket in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, Fakhri al Arashi, chief editor of the National Yemen, told the Associated Press. Somers had worked as a freelance photographer and copy editor for the newspaper in 2011.

mg/se (AFP, AP, Reuters)