By Steve Hynd
Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday that a British aid worker killed in an American rescue raid in Afghanistan last week may have been killed by a grenade detonated by a United States special forces unit � not by her Taliban captors, as the American command in Afghanistan originally announced.
A grim-faced Mr. Cameron appeared at a news conference at 10 Downing Street to say he had learned of �this deeply distressing development� when the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David H. Petraeus, contacted his office early Monday. �General Petraeus has since told me,� the prime minister said, that an American-led review of the raid to rescue Linda Norgrove, 36, �has revealed evidence to indicate that Linda may not have died at the hands of her captors as originally believed.�
He added: �That evidence and subsequent interviews with the personnel involved� � believed to have included a Navy Seals unit specializing in hostage rescues that that has participated in numerous special forces raids in Afghanistan � �suggest that Linda could have died as a result of a grenade detonated by the task force during the assault. However, this is not certain and a full U.S./U.K. investigation will now be launched.�
Kudos to AFP for having this from Word One. As we noted two days ago, their Afghan intelligence source was saying immediately after the events that Linda Norgrove had been killed by a US grenade. Other reports said that she hadn't died immediately, but while under emergency medical care at the site of her rescue.
The cynically-minded might suspect that NATO was hoping they could quietly blame the Taliban and have done but too many people noted that earlier AFP report. After all, NATO's credibility is in the gutter on such incidents after far too many initial denials of responsibility for civilian deaths followed by admissions of guilt when independent evidence surfaces.
As a British citizen before her violent death, the circumstances surrounding Linda Norgrove's death should correctly be the subject of a British coroner's inquest. Such inquests have been the subject of foot-dragging and outright obstruction from U.S. authorities in the past, but that Prime Minister Cameron has so quickly side-stepped common British law and practise to rubber-stamp a "joint" investigation in which the U.S. will necessarily be in the driving seat will not dispel cynical misgivings about the transarency and honesty of official pronouncements on Norgrave's death.
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