WASHINGTON -- U.S. Special Operations forces rescued an American hostage and her Danish colleague in Somalia early Wednesday in the kind of daring raid that the Obama administration has said will be the hallmark of future U.S. military missions.
Officials said the raid, by members of the same SEAL Team Six unit that killed Osama bin Laden in May, demonstrated President Barack Obama's focus on the narrow, targeted use of force after a decade of large-scale military deployments.
Obama called the mission "yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people."
Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, employees of a Danish aid agency, were freed after being held for three months by armed men near the town of Adado in north-central Somalia.
About a dozen SEALs parachuted from an Air Force special operations plane to a spot two miles from the compound where the hostages were held, Pentagon officials said. The commandos walked through the darkness and surprised the captors, killing at least eight before loading Buchanan and Thisted into helicopters, officials said.
News of their success reached Obama Tuesday evening, Eastern time, just before he traveled to the Capitol to deliver his State of the Union address. He could be heard saying "Good job tonight," to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as he passed through the chamber on his way to the podium.
Somali pirates are part of large criminal and clan networks and strike whenever there's opportunity. With the U.S. and other governments beefing up patrols and actively seeking sea-going pirates, some have turned their focus to kidnapping foreigners for ransom on land. With their clan ties, the pirates can hold their hostages in safe areas, under the protection of their clans, for months until a ransom is paid.
Buchanan, originally from Ohio, was employed with Thisted by the Danish Refugee Council, which provides aid for displaced Somalis in Mogadishu. They worked for the council's Danish Demining Group, which has operated for decades in Somalia clearing unexploded ordnance and land-mines that are spread across the country from countless wars, when they were captured in late October near Galkayo.
The Danish council said that Buchanan has worked for its mine-clearance unit since May 2010. Thisted, a community safety manager with the unit, has been with the organization since 2009.
Obama telephoned Buchanan's father shortly after the speech to tell him his daughter had been rescued, administration officials said.
