How the rescue of British aid worker Linda Norgrove ended in tragedy
 

Another bogus headline.

US Army Special Forces had nothing to do with this mission.

Again, for the archives, US Army Special Forces had nothing to do with this attempted rescue of British aid worker Linda Norgrove.

This "reporter" is making this one up.

Team Sergeant







How the rescue of British aid worker Linda Norgrove ended in tragedy

Captor detonated suicide vest as US special forces rescuers arrived at the mud-walled compound in eastern Afghanistan, says Nato
(22)
Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk, Sunday 10 October 2010 18.29 BST Article history

Undated Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) handout photo of kidnapped British aid worker Linda Norgrove, who was killed by captors in Afghanistan during a rescue attempt. Photograph: FCO/PA


American special forces were within "seconds" of rescuing the kidnapped British aid worker Linda Norgrove when she was fatally wounded by a suicidal explosion triggered by one of her captors, Nato said yesterday.

Details of how close the pre-dawn operation came to freeing the 36-year-old from a mud-walled compound in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan emerged during a briefing in the capital, Kabul.

US soldiers had already fought their way into the stronghold in the village of Dineshgal, in Kunar province, when the blast occurred on Saturday. One of the kidnappers is believed to have been wearing a suicide vest and standing beside Norgrove when it detonated.

After US medics reached her they gave emergency first aid and evacuated her by helicopter. She died shortly afterwards. Seven insurgents were reported to have been killed in the raid.

The blast occured "seconds before rescuers arrived", a Nato military spokesman said yesterday. "[US special forces] had entered the compound … [but] an insurgent detonated an explosive device that was attached to his person. He was in close enough proximity to Ms Norgrove. She was wounded. Soldiers – who were on the scene very, very shortly afterwards – attempted to provide medical care at the scene. She was evacuated straight away but succumbed to her wounds."

Her grieving family, gathered in their croft on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, were yesterday waiting to be given a full account of the events since her abduction before issuing a statement.

Her 60-year-old father, John, a retired civil engineer, and her 62-year-old mother, Lorna, who launched the charity Western Isles Beach Clean Up, were too upset to talk. They were joined during the day by Linda's sister Sofie. The family had already recorded a video pleading for her release but the Foreign Office had advised that publicising her identity at that stage would only place her at greater risk.

The rescue mission came three weeks after Norgrove was seized by insurgents as she drove from Jalalabad, where she worked for the US aid organisation Development Alternatives Inc (DAI), to inspect an irrigation project she had overseen.

An intrepid traveller, Norgrove had risked the journey into one of Afghanistan's more dangerous districts in the company of three trusted local workers. After her Afghan staff companions were liberated by their captors, the security forces became fearful that Norgrove was about to be taken over the nearby border into Pakistan. Tribal leaders were reported to have been trying to negotiate her release from Dineshgal, where she was being held. They complained their efforts were hindered after local roads were blocked by coalition troops.

Tributes to Norgrove's dedication poured in over the weekend. Although she grew up in the Outer Hebrides, the family would spend five weeks every second winter in third world countries.

After gaining a first class degree at Aberdeen University, she researched how national park management in Uganda affected the indigenous population and eventually secured a PhD from Manchester University in 2002. She became an environmental specialist at the World Wildlife Fund in Peru before going on to work for the UN in Afghanistan and Laos.

Norgrove had returned recently to Afghanistan to join DAI. Its chief executive, James Boomgard, said: "Linda loved Afghanistan and cared deeply for its people, and she was deeply committed to her development mission. She was an inspiration to many of us."

Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, said: "Ms Norgrove was a dedicated aid worker who was doing everything she could to help people in Afghanistan – hopefully that legacy of service in a humanitarian cause can be of some comfort to her loved ones in their time of grief."

The foreign secretary, William Hague, defended the decision to launch a rescue operation. "Responsibility for this tragic outcome rests squarely with the hostage-takers," he insisted. "From the moment they took her, her life was under grave threat. Given who held her, and the danger she was in, we judged that Linda's best chance lay in attempting to rescue her."

In the aftermath of the third fatality among British aid workers in Afghanistan since the summer, both the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development insisted there were no plans to alter advice given to those travelling into potentially hostile regions.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...linda-norgrove

AP version
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101011/...as_afghanistan

I've never rescued a hostage before but I bet they don't use grenades like that.

Never, never...never
 

blacksmoke, one never has had to participate in a hostage rescue to know a grenade is not a surgical weapon.
Maybe it was a S__L "sniper".

TRUE
 

I saw this crap on TV news this PM here in Nashville. I about hit the roof when the last part stated some in England /British folks blame the USSF.

Like Dave said -" You do not use concussion or WP grenades near a POW."

Then I read where foreign countries are now suing Arizona. The damn left has gone
looney tunes for good. And both Obama and his pal Oprah said-" The only way to change America is to destroy it."

Damn if they are not working overtime to drag us to their hell hole.

They tend to use US Special Forces for everything from SEALS to Force Recon to guitar players. It's really getting old. Maybe we need to change the name to Extra Special Forces.:mad::mad:
Be a helluva long tab though.

How about "Double Secret Probation Special Forces"? :rolleyes:

"Dressed in black, wearing night-vision goggles and carrying automatic weapons and grenades, a small band of Navy Seals – the U.S. equivalent of the SAS – were informed that over their earpieces that the situation was a ‘go’."

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

"Linda Norgrove, a 36-year-old employee of the U.S.-based DAI agency, which provides aid to developing nations, died Saturday during an operation mounted by 150 U.S. Navy SEALs to free her from a compound in a remote and mountainous part of the Kunar province."

Source:http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...nade_duri.html


I rarely give my opinion here as I am nearly always out of my depth, but the spin/ discrepancies that I have read in every single newspaper article on this situation has made me wonder just what the hell the civilian population/ media has become. They do not even have the SA to realize that they are too ignorant to make worthwhile commentary on what happened.:rolleyes:

According to CBS, it was possibly friendly fire by USSF. POTUS is requesting an inquiry as to what transpired because of recent "surveillance footage."

"The U.S.-led NATO coalition says that U.S. forces may have detonated a grenade that killed Linda Norgrove during the operation to free her."

"Norgrove died Friday night - nearly two weeks after being captured - when U.S. special forces stormed the Taliban compound where she was being held in Kunar province."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...ml?tag=topnews

Reaper411

Some, but comments I've read on Brit news sites show there's as many stating they'll wait for the facts and that rescues are not easy, and some thanking the U.S. for trying.

150 SEALs
 

150 SEALs all in one place? Man, that's a lot of SEALs. But with the press - if the first ten were SEALs that makes everyone behind them SEALs.

I certainly questioned the credibility of these reports when I first started reading them.

Regardless of who it was, conventional forces or special operations or special forces, I'll be interested to see how said investigation proceeds. Apparently British spokes-people have acknowledged that they knew a rescue attempt was the best option.

Since it was U.S. forces that made the rescue attempt, will our lovely administration flex their muscles of righteousness and bring charges against a soldier that threw a grenade? I'm not too sure how relevant legal precedent is in a situation like this. After the SEAL had charges brought against him recently for bloodying a terrorists lip, I wouldn't be surprised to see something happen here.

FWIW...

The story has said nothing yet about a thrown grenade - it consistently referred to having "detonated" either a "grenade" or an "explosive device" of some sort.

The story has further stated - "One of the kidnappers is believed to have been wearing a suicide vest and standing beside Norgrove when it detonated."

There are a number of ways such a vest or a grenade might be detonated, wilfully or by accident, by either the wearer or an attacker under such an operation.

The UK refers to all SOF as SF - it goes back to WW2 when the SOE wore the jump wings with the round red circle between the white wings and white 'SF' letters in the red circle.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

These jump wings were also given consideration by USSF, with the "SF" a teal blue where the Brits were white.

maybe the breeching charge????

British source...special forces is a catch-all phrase in the UK...it's a proper noun over here...

There is so much conflicting information being given out it is difficult to decipher it. Not wanting to armchair anything, I will wait until the final report is out before making any final judgements.

Now why would you want to go and do a thing like that???:cool: That would make to much sense.

To bad the media didn't follow that philosophy:eek:

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...roup_allie.php

"Unnamed British officials are claiming the US launched the raid without using British special operations forces, and described US forces as careless and "gung ho," according to The Telegraph."

Source:http://www.smh.com.au/world/truth-of...012-16htl.html

Within hours of being told of Linda Norgrove's kidnapping on September 26, Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, approved a US-led special forces mission to rescue her.

Now it has emerged that Norgrove was probably killed by a grenade lobbed by an American during her failed rescue.

''I am clear that the best chance of saving Linda's life was to go ahead, recognising that any operation was fraught with risk for all those involved and success was by no means guaranteed,'' the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, said.

''None of us can understand just how painful this must be for Linda's family.''

As fresh details of the doomed raid in Kunar province emerged, Hague insisted the authorities had had no communication from the 36-year-old aid worker's captors. There had been no opportunity to negotiate her release.

Instead, the US Navy's SEAL Team 6 was put on 30-minute readiness to mount an airborne raid while intelligence officers worked to pinpoint the Taliban base where she was being held.

From the outset, Hague and the British government's ''Cobra'' emergency response committee had been told Norgrove faced ''a continual threat'' of being moved across the border into Pakistan.

One NATO source said: ''We knew that if she went east of the Kunar River, we would never have seen her again.''

Hague insists he and his International Security Assistance Force colleagues had to gamble on a rescue mission, convinced that doing nothing would carry an even greater risk.

For the next 12 days, with the Cobra committee meeting almost every day and sometimes twice a day, the rescue plans were thwarted by a lack of reliable intelligence.

But last Friday word came from Kabul that US forces had received ''very detailed intelligence'' from locals saying the hostage was inside a Taliban compound 2500 metres up in the remote Korengal Valley.

A crisis management team at the British embassy signed off on the mission with Hague's approval. Cameron was told and supported the decision.

At a forward operating base in north-eastern Afghanistan, about 50 members of SEAL Team 6 boarded three helicopters as the mountain mist cleared. Within half an hour the SEALs were abseiling to the ground. They met six insurgents defending the compound with guns, rocket-propelled grenades and suicide bomb vests.

Exactly what happened next could take months to piece together. As soon as they hit the ground, the SEALs opened fire on the insurgents, killing all six in an exchange lasting no more than 30 minutes. At some point, at least one SEAL threw a hand grenade into the compound, which it now seems fatally wounded Norgrove.

Why the grenade was thrown, and what made the SEAL think it would not injure Norgrove, will be at the centre of an investigation.

By the time the SEALs reached Norgrove, she was beyond help. They loaded her body into one of the helicopters and flew it back to base. Then, it seems, the fog of war descended.

Just what the SEALs told their superiors during debriefing is unclear, but none of them seems to have raised the possibility that Norgrove was killed by a grenade thrown by one of them.

Footage from a US Predator drone aircraft flying over the Taliban compound appeared to back up the initial version of events, that she had been killed in an explosion detonated by one of her captors.

Initial reports from Afghan security officials made clear that the kidnappers had blown up the room where Norgrove was being held hostage.

Throughout Sunday, British officials in London maintained that Norgrove ''was killed by an explosion, most likely a suicide vest held by a hostage taker''.

A government source said: ''Nothing at all suggests US fire was the cause of the death.''

By Sunday evening, even more graphic descriptions were emerging from unnamed NATO sources. One was quoted as saying a kidnapper had clasped Norgrove as soon as the special forces mission started.

The source said: ''It's not clear yet whether he had an explosive device slung over his shoulder or was carrying it in his hand but she was right next to him and when he detonated it, she was killed.''

However, on Monday the story suddenly changed. General David Petraeus, the commander of foreign forces, ordered a review of the operation, standard procedure when a hostage has died.

This time, as the officers reviewed the surveillance video from the drone, they noticed one of the SEALs throwing a grenade towards the compound.

Instead of a suicide bomber claiming her life, a spokesman for coalition forces said the ''balance of judgment'' now suggested Norgrove was killed by the blast of a grenade thrown by her rescuers.

My prayers are for the kidnapped woman and the SEALs involved. I have yet to see anyone blaim the scum that kidnapped her. I don't ever expect to see the final debrief, or the findings of the up comming investigation, but if a SEAL did kill her it was inadvertant, the fact that she died is on the Taliban.

So who headed the operation, SEALS, SF or the Brits?

I obviously can't go into that. But, I'll say that none of what I've read here describes what actually happened.

RIP ma'am. My thanks to the men who risk their lives every day to leave no one behind.

RIP to fallen, and heartfelt thanks to those like her who risk their lives on a daily basis to try to make the rough corners of the world a better place.

It always takes time to sort the info, and sometimes it never is fully sorted. Whether the current stories are accurate or not, I know those who put themselves in harm's way to fight for a happy ending do, and always will, have my undying support. It never ceases to humble me.

SOCNET has a thread on this as well. Some info from someone who was I think indirectly involved and commented on the press writeup.

He stated that it was "fairly close", and obviously couldn't get into detail, but as others have said, it's gonna take awhile

This said it was SEAL 6 team
 

Linda NOrgrove: US navy SEAL faces disciplinary action over grenade death


Guardian learns commando hurled explosive device during rescue as he had not seen UK aid worker taking cover nearby


Linda Norgrove Linda Norgrove managed to break free from her captors, but tragically was not seen by her rescuers, according to Guardian sources

Startling details of the daring rescue mission that ended in the death of the British aid worker Linda Norgrove can be revealed today, as a joint US-UK investigation into the incident gets under way.

The Guardian has learned that a US special forces soldier who is believed to have accidentally killed Norgrove is likely to face disciplinary action after failing to inform his commanding officers that he had used a grenade until long after the event.

Sources in Kabul and London have confirmed that during the assault on the kidnappers' hideaway the hostage broke away from her captors and lay in a foetal position to avoid harm.

The soldier from the elite Seal Team Six special forces unite failed to see Norgrove and tossed his fragmentation grenade in, which exploded next to her.

It has also emerged today that:

• US forces monitored the kidnappers using a network of informers and drones

• Conversations were intercepted indicating Norgrove could be executed "like the Russian" or shipped across the Pakistan border

• British officers working with the Americans were kept informed of the intelligence at all times

• The entire mission was relayed on to six widescreen televisions back at the command centre

Norgrove's death was first attributed to an insurgent detonating a suicide vest – an account that was reported around the world.

The use of a fragmentation grenade was first discovered when the taskforce commander in charge of the mission reassessed surveillance video of the attack and saw the Seal toss the grenade into the compound four seconds before the blast.

It is unusual to use a fragmentation grenade (as opposed to a smoke grenade or a stun grenade) in a hostage rescue. However, the rescue team carried them in this mission to give them flexibility in dealing with whatever resistance they met on the way to or back from the target.

The Seals involved in the assault were summoned by their commander and asked if any of them had used a fragmentation grenade. One stepped forward and identified himself, triggering a frantic effort by embarrassed US commanders to correct the official record and alert the British government.

Absolute certainty on Norgrove's cause of death will have to await the official results of an autopsy but senior officers are almost sure that the investigation will show the US grenade was responsible.

Top commanders, including the head of US forces in Afghanistan and Nato's International Stabilisation Assistance Force (Isaf), General David Petraeus, are said to be greatly distressed that a misleading account of the raid was initially provided to the British government, and concerned about the potential damage to the bilateral relationship. The fact that the Seal did not admit using the grenade immediately is seen as a matter of integrity among senior officers.

Petraeus insisted that Downing Street should be informed as soon the true facts were discovered, in the early hours of Monday morning. He ordered a joint investigation, to be headed by a British brigadier, Rob Nitsch, and Major General Joseph Votel, who has extensive US special forces experience.

"Petraeus was very clear that he wanted to flag something was wrong with the original account," a Downing Street source said. "They took another look at the video and immediately called us."

Norgrove's family have expressed gratitude to US forces for "not sweeping under the carpet" the details of her death.

From interviews with well-informed sources, both military and civilian, the Guardian has put together this detailed account of the failed rescue mission.

Norgrove, originally from Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands, was seized on 26 September, when her car was forced off the road in Kunar province, near the Pakistan border.

Soon after her abduction, she was taken to a stronghold in a steep-sided valley 8,000ft (2,400 metres) up in the mountains of northern Kunar. But her kidnappers were being watched. US intelligence had a network of informers in the area and drones circling above. They were watching Norgrove's captors and eavesdropping on their radio conversations. All that intelligence was immediately passed to a British officer.

By late last week it was clear, according to sources, that Norgrove's life was in very grave danger. One group of local elders was calling for her execution, talking of killing her like "the Russian" some years before, an apparent reference to the long war with the Soviet army, in which captured soldiers were often slaughtered in horrifying ways.

The other option her captors were debating was shipping Norgrove to North Waziristan, the tribal territory in western Pakistan, which is almost entirely outside the control of government forces, and where it would be virtually impossible to keep track of the British woman and her abductors.

From the outset, there was little question that if there was to be a rescue mission it would be carried out by Seal Team Six, a secretive US navy unit used for high-risk counter-terrorist operations. Commanders considered the only other special forces qualified to carry out the assault were the US Delta Force and Britain's SAS, which had rescued a British-Irish journalist, Stephen Farrell, last year.

However, the SAS were too far away and did not have the MH-60, a Black Hawk helicopter highly modified for special forces night operations and just about capable of functioning in such thin mountain air. Furthermore, Seal Team Six had been operating in that area of northern Kunar for months. They knew the terrain and their adversaries.

The assault was launched before dawn on Saturday morning, when it was thought the insurgents would be at their most groggy. Landing the Seals some distance away and creeping of the compound on foot was impossible. There was nowhere flat to set down for miles around.

The only realistic option was for the US special forces to descend on the target compound out of the night sky, sliding down ropes, guns blazing. Far away, in the taskforce headquarters, the operation was being watched on six big screens, each showing a live feed from a different source — the drones, the helicopters and even the Seals' helmet cameras. It was not the sharp green clarity as portrayed Hollywood films – sometimes a feed would be lost as an aircraft made a turn for example – but the unfolding action was clear enough.

In the first few violent minutes, the plan seemed to be working. The six abductors holding Norgrove stumbled out of their huts into the central compound and were shot and killed. What the Seals did not see however, was one of the insurgents dragging Linda Norgrove out of a hut with him.

She managed to break away and lay down, hunched up in the foetal position – the safest thing to do given the hail of gunfire around her – but on that moonless night, the Seals did not spot her, even with their night vision goggles.

To the horror of the senior officers watching back at headquarters, the six big screens were lit up by a blast that seemed to come from the vicinity of Norgrove and the insurgent closest to her, and soon afterwards word came from the returning helicopters that Norgrove was mortally wounded. The operation had failed.

The immediate assumption was that the blast had come from a suicide bomb, as it is not unusual for insurgents to slip into suicide vests if there is a risk of attack.

Late on Sunday, however, the taskforce commander acted on a hunch and asked to see the video of the assault stored on the computer hard drive at its headquarters. Running through it again, he spotted one Seal, standing on the roof of one of the huts, toss something underhand into the compound. Four seconds later the screen went bright from the explosion. He called the team in and asked who had thrown a grenade. One man stepped forward.

Within minutes, the Seal Team Six commander was on a secure line to Petraeus with the bad news. It was 7.30am in Kabul, 4am in London, but Petraeus quickly made the call to Downing Street, where a defence aide woke the prime minister.

An operation that was supposed to draw on the strength of a close military partnership had ended with another civilian casualty in a dirty war and the bond of trust at the heart of the transatlantic relationship sorely tested.


* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Who threw the grenade
 

Good mission - bad mission : people can argue all day but the above bothers me a bit.

Might be just me but the thought of six big screens going at HQ and somebody able to go through them frame by frame, sippin' coffee as you are on the ride back in. Talk about oversight.

Just like that movie, (can't remember which one) where they watch on TV's/monitors through thermal on a hit in the desert.

Nothing like having three or more echelons of command in your backyard, I bet that makes life.....nice...or not. (obvious sarcasm)

FWIW, Patriot Games was the film. I can understand why it sucks for the boots on the ground, though. What's next, chip implants for the operators, with sat-link to a joystick control back at HQ?

Back in my lane.

A tragic set of circumstances indeed. Our prayers are with everyone involved. Unfortunately, I am sure one or some of the SEALS will be made an example of.

My prayers are with both Ms. Norgrove's family and those that dared to attempt her rescue. Regardless of the outcome, those men risked everything for her, and I take comfort knowing there are such men.

Did she go into Afghanistan thinking she wouldn't be in danger? I'm sorry she is dead but if she went into a warzone with an expectation of not being in harm's way because of her non-combatant status, she not only put herself in danger, but those who came to rescue her...

US soldier faces action over death of kidnapped aid worker
 

A bit concerning. Could be conjecture.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...id-worker.html

Bad thing, but I wish they would quit saying "Special Forces Soldier"

Agreed 100% TL. This is one of the drawbacks to all that cool technology where commanders have real time visuals though. With politics being what they are, someone will pay the piper. That is usually the ones doing the actual mission who are also the most expendable.

Hence the reason I posted this thread.

IMO there should be no action taken again the Navy SEAL or SEALS. That's just my opinion.

TS

They tried to rescue her.

That SEAL threw the grenade probably thinking that she was still inside one of the huts.

It was a tragic accident.

Agree with some of the other posters that someone will probably be punished just to conciliate diplomatic relations.

Foreign aid workers, missionaries, etc. should stay out of countries while they are experiencing political instability or conflict.

The Brits have a funny way with deaths. Their inquest(s) carry legal weight. Even military deaths get civilian inquest and occasionally they hand down "convictions".

Here is an example, you can google fu if you need to read others.

What a coroner's inquest will determine with this unfortunate military death is to be seen.

:munchin

Actually, I disagree with your statement.

Granted, they often wind up in trouble. But, in a war of ideas/ideology, such as we are presently involved in, these folks can play a huge part in winning.