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????