LONDON - kidnapped British aide worker Linda Norgrove was a grenade thrown by U.S. special forces in a botched rescue attempt killed British Foreign Secretary William Hague said an investigation confirmed.
Ms. of Norgrove's death in Afghanistan in October was originally censured on her kidnappers Taliban before the United States said may were responsible and set up a joint investigation into the death with British military experts. Mrs Norgrove, 36 years old, was on Oct. 8 killed, what a person with the matter described as a team of Navy Seals trusted connection stormed where it was held in the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan.
Had the grenade of U.S. soldier to a group was triggered by insurgents, as along believing a number of buildings in the U.s. woman Norgove a narrow lead over was held. Mrs Norgrove was with the insurgents and died on shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade that your head and chest, wounds believed at first to have been penetrated from a suicide vest.
Failed rescue attempt has led to disciplinary measures for special operations forces team members for "Failing to provide a full and complete account of your actions", said Mr Hague.
Mrs Norgrove was located a main province of Kunar travel, if you by a local Taliban group who was abducted in connection with al-Qaeda in September. Worked with development alternatives Inc., one of the largest development contractor working for the State Department in Afghanistan. Three Afghans abducted with Mrs Norgrove then released unharmed.
The rescue came to finish of a task that had provided approximately 1,000 us and Afghan troops if two helicopters of U.S. forces in the vicinity to two small groups of buildings, dropped off in the Dewagal high Valley.
Mr Hague special operations forces operating in total darkness and helicopters to said a US where vertical gradient of close to descended from a rugged mountainside, altitude of 8,000 feet have been.
The American or British forces generally do not use grenades in such hostage rescues and the soldier who threw it has disciplined was U.S. troops to not reporting its use to senior officers, said Mr Hague.
The u.k.-Minister praised the courage of U.S. troops but said it was a "question of concern" that the facts as Mrs Norgrove died not made clear immediately after the operation.
He said the authority to mount, the operation of Mr Hague, because he came finally Norgrove's wife was life in danger had given. "We judged that Linda Norgrove's life was in serious danger of the moment was kidnapped, and we fear that her earlier passed the Taliban chain of command their kidnappers or her to more inaccessible terrain would move," he said Parliament. "We also judged that the only credible perspective secure your release by a rescue attempt was, why I entitled such an attempt be made."
The common American or British study conducted over two and a half weeks by a team of ten men in Afghanistan. It interviewed all the staff in the rescue effort involved, and to assess hours of video evidence and hundreds of pages of evidence.
Mr Hague said that the U.S. military tactics, techniques and procedures involved in hostage rescue operations after wife of Norgrove's death is review.
"US central command sincerely regrets the loss of life that have resulted from this horrific incident and we extend our deepest condolences to the family Norgrove for their tragic loss," said a spokesman for U.S. armed forces.
Hostage rescues have shown before the deadly. In September last year, British special forces saved an abducted New York Times reporter but his translator was killed in the attempt.
Write toAlistair MacDonald at alistair.macdonald@wsj.com
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