Linda Norgrove - another perspective

[insidejob]

The story about aid worker killed in a hostage rescue operation makes no sense. This is another perspective that makes a lot more sense.

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2010/10/murder-of-linda-norgrove.html
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
THE MURDER OF LINDA NORGROVE

"British aid worker murdered ( http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/10/10/british-aid-worker -murdered-by-taliban-during-rescue-operation-115875-22622241/) by Taliban during rescue operation" I knew this story was bs when I first read it. Initial debriefings of the 'crack US troops' involved somehow missed the little incident of throwing a grenade into the area where they thought Norgrove was being held. The story (http://www.edmontonjournal.com/travel/Captors+killed+Linda+Norgrove+w ith+suicide+vest+source/3652075/story.html) of how the evil Taliban killed her with a suicide vest started to sprout more and more details with the retelling. Suddenly, somebody looked at a tape of the incident (the fact it is a NATO operation probably meant the Americans couldn't hide the tape from the British), saw the grenade being thrown, and the world turned upside down...

... They wanted her dead. Why? Probably the usual reason: she knew too much, or at least might have known too much. The most likely explanation by far was that she was in the hands of the drug warlords who operate with the CIA, and thus might have had stories to tell which the CIA didn't want told...

[item8]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1320363/Soldier-accidentally-k illed-British-hostage-Linda-Norgrove-punished.html

[TonyGosling]

Wall Street Journal reporting
THE BIG QUESTIONS ARE... Who was she working for? & What did Linda know?

U.K. Finds U.S. Forces Liable in Killing
By ALISTAIR MACDONALD

LONDON—Kidnapped British aide worker Linda Norgrove was killed by a grenade thrown by U.S. special operations forces in a botched rescue attempt, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said an investigation has confirmed.


British aid worker Linda Norgrove.

Ms. Norgrove's death in Afghanistan in October was initially blamed on her Taliban captors before U.S. forces said they may have been responsible and set up a joint investigation into the death with British military experts. Ms. Norgrove, 36 years old, was slain on Oct. 8 as what a person familiar with the matter described as a team of Navy Seals stormed the compound where she was being held in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

The grenade had been thrown by a U.S. soldier at a group of insurgents as he advanced along a narrow ledge towards a series of buildings in which U.S. troops believed Ms. Norgove was being held. Ms. Norgrove was with the insurgents and died from shrapnel from a fragmentation-grenade that pierced her head and chest, wounds which at first were believed to have been from a suicide vest.

The failed rescue attempt has led to disciplinary action for members of the special operations forces team for "failing to provide a complete and full account of their actions," Mr. Hague said.

Ms. Norgrove was traveling along a main road in Kunar province when she was abducted in September by a local Taliban faction linked to al Qaeda. She was working with Development Alternatives Inc., one of the largest development contractors working for the U.S. State Department in Afghanistan. Three Afghans abducted with Ms. Norgrove were subsequently released unharmed.

The rescue came at the end of an operation which had deployed around 1,000 U.S. and Afghan troops when two helicopters dropped U.S. troops off near to two small groups of buildings high in the Dewagal valley.

Mr. Hague said U.S. special operations forces had been operating in total darkness and descended from helicopters at a near-vertical incline of a rugged mountainside, 8,000 feet in height.

U.S. and U.K. forces typically don't use grenades in such hostage rescues and the soldier who threw it has been disciplined by U.S. forces after not reporting his use to senior officers, Mr. Hague said.

The U.K. minister praised the bravery of U.S. troops but said it was a "matter of concern" that the facts of how Ms. Norgrove died were not made clear immediately after the operation.

Mr. Hague said he had given the authority to mount the operation because he concluded that Ms. Norgrove's life was at risk. "We judged that Linda Norgrove's life was in grave danger from the moment she was abducted, and we feared that her captors would pass her higher up the Taliban chain of command or move her to more inaccessible terrain," he told parliament. "We also judged that the only credible prospect of securing her release was through a rescue attempt, which is why I authorized such an attempt to be made."

The joint U.S. and U.K. investigation was conducted by a ten-man team over two and a half weeks in Afghanistan. It interviewed all the personnel involved in the rescue attempt, and assessed hours of video evidence and hundreds of pages of documentary evidence.

Mr. Hague said that the U.S. military is reviewing tactics, techniques and procedures involved in hostage rescue operations following Ms. Norgrove's death.

"U.S. Central Command sincerely regrets the loss of life that resulted from this terrible incident, and we extend our deepest condolences to the Norgrove family for their tragic loss," a spokesman for U.S. forces said.

Hostage rescues have proven deadly before. Last September, British special operations forces rescued a kidnapped New York Times reporter but his translator was killed in the attempt.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703377504575650473995850 014.html

[TonyGosling]

Coroner turns truth on its head today [my additions in square brackets]

Norgrove coroner praises US forces
(UKPA) – 4 hours ago
A coroner has praised the courage of the US special forces who mounted a botched mission to rescue kidnapped aid worker Linda Norgrove in Afghanistan.
Ms Norgrove, 36, was killed by a grenade thrown by a US soldier during the operation, but Wiltshire coroner David Ridley did not blame him or his comrades for the tragic mistake.
Giving a narrative verdict at her inquest, he said the serviceman "genuinely feared for the safety of the lives of his colleagues and also himself and had to make a critical decision in a fraction of a second".
And he hailed the "bravery and courage shown by the US special forces in even attempting that rescue".
Ms Norgrove, from the Western Isles, was helping the Afghan people rebuild their war-torn country [not gathering intel of course] when she was seized during an ambush in the Dewagal valley in Kunar province on September 26.
The inquest heard that visibility was so poor the US troops who tried to rescue her had been unaware of her presence as they fired at insurgents and the fatal grenade was thrown. It also heard details of how close the special forces came to achieving their goal.
Giving [second hand] evidence at Wiltshire and Swindon Coroner's Court, British Brigadier Robert Nitsch, who helped investigate the incident, said a US soldier had thrown the grenade as he feared his comrades were in danger and had been "thinking at a million miles a minute at this time".
In the aftermath of the disaster, false information was given that she had been killed by an Afghan insurgent, with the truth not emerging for almost two days. This was partly because the team leader of the operation believed her captor had blown himself up, the inquest heard.
The inquest was attended by her parents, John and Lorna, who live on Lewis in the Western Isles, younger sister, Sofie Corns, 34, and eight-month-old nephew, Tom.
In a statement released after the verdict, the family said: "She was a lovely girl, had so much to offer and was such a force for good in the world. We miss her terribly. The whole affair is a tragedy. [and we're not allowed to criticise these gun-ho murderers in this second hand tittle-tattle travesty of an inquest]"

[fish5133]

A win win decsion by the Generals. If they rescued her alive--look what wonderful things we do. If she gets killed along with all the Taliban captors it sends them a message we dont stand for hostage taking. She was politically expendable collateral damage.. She would have been far safer in her captors hands (if indeed they were captors) especially when they find out her aid work.

IO was suspicious the moment I saw Hague giving his televised sadness story. maybe he was feeling guilty for having sanctioned the rescue attempt. Then he found his scapegoat