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British hostage 'killed by captors' in Afghanistan as US forces led rescue bid
By Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk, Saturday 9 October 2010
From The Guardian
US special forces in Afghanistan stormed a compound in a pre-dawn raid yesterday, where 36-year-old Linda Norgrove was being held in the village of Dineshgal, Kunar province, in the east of the country.
A tribal elder was quoted as saying that the kidnappers had killed Norgrove during the assault. A suicide vest was found nearby, but it was not clear if it had been detonated or if other explosives had been used to kill the aid worker. "There is nothing at all to suggest that US fire was the cause," a Foreign Office spokesman added. Seven insurgents are also understood to have died during the rescue bid.
"The captors killed the British woman as the [Nato troops were] trying to rescue her," Jan Mohammed Khan, a tribal elder from the Norgal district of Kunar, told the agency by telephone. The account could not be verified. An unnamed Afghan intelligence source was quoted by Sky news, claiming Norgrove was killed when a grenade was thrown into the room in which she was being held.
The remote valley where she is believed to have been held in mountainous Kunar province, which borders Pakistan, is known for its difficult heavily forested terrain, heavily forested and remote. It is also notoriously unstable.
British and Nato officials refused to provide more specific information. News of Norgrove's death was broken yesterday by Foreign Secretary William Hague. "Responsibility for this tragic outcome rests squarely with the hostage takers," he said. "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."
Defending that decision, David Cameron added: "Decisions on operations to free hostages are always difficult. But where a British life is in such danger, and where we and our allies can act, I believe it is right to try."
Her 60-year-old father, a retired civil engineer, and her 62-year-old mother, who launched the charity Western Isles Beach Clean Up, were too upset to talk yesterday. They had recorded a video appealing for their daughter's release, but she was killed before the Foreign Office allowed it to be broadcast.
Former colleagues described Norgrove yesterday as a person of enormous warmth and kindness who was deeply committed to helping people in poor areas of the world and who had spent years in Peru and Laos before arriving in Afghanistan.
Steven O'Connor of DAI the organisation she worked for recalled visiting her in August in Jalalabad. "She was a remarkable woman," he said. "You could tell the high degree of respect she was held in by the Afghans from the ministries she worked with, all of them male. She was really attuned to the local culture. She was an idealist, but she was also pragmatic and thoughtful and under no illusions about Afghanistan, especially the position of women in society." He added: "We didn't talk about security issues, but she knew Kunar was more dangerous than other areas."
He said his organisation was examining security arrangements in the wake of the kidnapping, but added: "We can't do our job locked behind walls in Kabul. We have to do it in contested areas." Norgrove was kidnapped in eastern Kunar province on 26 September after being ambushed with three Afghan colleagues. Kunar police chief Khalilullah Zaiyi said officers chased after the kidnappers and were engaged in a brief firefight before the men escaped. The three Afghans were later released.
Among those who paid tribute to Norgrove yesterday was Rory Stewart, the Conservative MP and author, who set up his own charity to assist Afghans. "I met Linda and liked her, although I didn't know her well. It is, of course, a tragedy. She dedicated her life to Afghanistan. Her death is a sad reminder of the sacrifices civilians have made, while trying to bring assistance to Afghanistan. My thoughts are very much with her family."
Norgrove is the second British aid worker to be killed in Afghanistan in recent months. In August, Dr Karen Woo, who worked for a Christian charity, was shot dead with nine colleagues. The latest death came at the end of a week that saw the war enter its tenth year.
Norgrove's death has not been the first rescue operation of an abducted Briton to end in bloodshed. New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell and translator and reporter Sultan Munadi were taken hostage in September 2009 when they went to cover a Nato airstrike that killed scores of civilians in northern Afghanistan. Munadi and a British commando died in the raid that rescued Farrell.
By Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk, Saturday 9 October 2010
From The Guardian
US special forces in Afghanistan stormed a compound in a pre-dawn raid yesterday, where 36-year-old Linda Norgrove was being held in the village of Dineshgal, Kunar province, in the east of the country.
A tribal elder was quoted as saying that the kidnappers had killed Norgrove during the assault. A suicide vest was found nearby, but it was not clear if it had been detonated or if other explosives had been used to kill the aid worker. "There is nothing at all to suggest that US fire was the cause," a Foreign Office spokesman added. Seven insurgents are also understood to have died during the rescue bid.
"The captors killed the British woman as the [Nato troops were] trying to rescue her," Jan Mohammed Khan, a tribal elder from the Norgal district of Kunar, told the agency by telephone. The account could not be verified. An unnamed Afghan intelligence source was quoted by Sky news, claiming Norgrove was killed when a grenade was thrown into the room in which she was being held.
The remote valley where she is believed to have been held in mountainous Kunar province, which borders Pakistan, is known for its difficult heavily forested terrain, heavily forested and remote. It is also notoriously unstable.
British and Nato officials refused to provide more specific information. News of Norgrove's death was broken yesterday by Foreign Secretary William Hague. "Responsibility for this tragic outcome rests squarely with the hostage takers," he said. "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."
Defending that decision, David Cameron added: "Decisions on operations to free hostages are always difficult. But where a British life is in such danger, and where we and our allies can act, I believe it is right to try."
Her 60-year-old father, a retired civil engineer, and her 62-year-old mother, who launched the charity Western Isles Beach Clean Up, were too upset to talk yesterday. They had recorded a video appealing for their daughter's release, but she was killed before the Foreign Office allowed it to be broadcast.
Former colleagues described Norgrove yesterday as a person of enormous warmth and kindness who was deeply committed to helping people in poor areas of the world and who had spent years in Peru and Laos before arriving in Afghanistan.
Steven O'Connor of DAI the organisation she worked for recalled visiting her in August in Jalalabad. "She was a remarkable woman," he said. "You could tell the high degree of respect she was held in by the Afghans from the ministries she worked with, all of them male. She was really attuned to the local culture. She was an idealist, but she was also pragmatic and thoughtful and under no illusions about Afghanistan, especially the position of women in society." He added: "We didn't talk about security issues, but she knew Kunar was more dangerous than other areas."
He said his organisation was examining security arrangements in the wake of the kidnapping, but added: "We can't do our job locked behind walls in Kabul. We have to do it in contested areas." Norgrove was kidnapped in eastern Kunar province on 26 September after being ambushed with three Afghan colleagues. Kunar police chief Khalilullah Zaiyi said officers chased after the kidnappers and were engaged in a brief firefight before the men escaped. The three Afghans were later released.
Among those who paid tribute to Norgrove yesterday was Rory Stewart, the Conservative MP and author, who set up his own charity to assist Afghans. "I met Linda and liked her, although I didn't know her well. It is, of course, a tragedy. She dedicated her life to Afghanistan. Her death is a sad reminder of the sacrifices civilians have made, while trying to bring assistance to Afghanistan. My thoughts are very much with her family."
Norgrove is the second British aid worker to be killed in Afghanistan in recent months. In August, Dr Karen Woo, who worked for a Christian charity, was shot dead with nine colleagues. The latest death came at the end of a week that saw the war enter its tenth year.
Norgrove's death has not been the first rescue operation of an abducted Briton to end in bloodshed. New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell and translator and reporter Sultan Munadi were taken hostage in September 2009 when they went to cover a Nato airstrike that killed scores of civilians in northern Afghanistan. Munadi and a British commando died in the raid that rescued Farrell.
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