'Grenade Mistake' Killed Aid Worker - Sky News

6:22pm UK, Tuesday February 15, 2011

Katie Stallard, west of England correspondent

The grenade that killed kidnapped British aid worker Linda Norgrove in Afghanistan was thrown by the most junior member of the US special forces team sent to rescue her, an inquest has heard.

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The operative - identified in court as TM5 - had "genuinely feared for the safety of the lives of his colleagues and himself" when he made the split-second decision to throw the grenade, the inquest's coroner found.

Despite being the most recent addition to the specialist team and the least experienced, TM5 was said to be an "extremely credible" and "very mature" individual, who had served more than a decade in the US military.

Intelligence had pinpointed Ms Norgrove's location to a remote compound, 8000ft above sea level, on a near-vertical incline, in the remote Kunar region of the country.

Reports suggesting she was being moved regularly and might be about to be sold on to the Taliban or killed, prompted the rescue operation.

Foreign Secretary William Hague authorised the rescue attempt which took place in the early hours of October 9 last year.

The elite unit dropped into the compound on fast-lines from a chinook-variant helicopter in the dead of night.

Visibility was said to be "almost nil" and the troops used night-vision equipment to navigate.

They came almost immediately under fire and split into two teams, moving forward and engaging three insurgents.

In his evidence to a joint US-UK military investigation into the incident, TM5 said he was "thinking a million miles a minute" as the team were pinned down on an exposed terrace.

He said he could see an insurgent holding a gun and thought "if this guy rips full auto right now, right down our channel, there's a couple of guys who are going to go down, and it's going to get real ugly, real fast".

TM5 then took the decision to throw a fragmentation grenade into the gully from which the man had appeared, not knowing that Ms Norgrove was also down there.

Ms Norgrove's lifeless body was later found and despite the efforts of US medics, she was later pronounced dead.

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.

Linda's Norgrove's family

Her parents, John and Linda Norgrove, said the inquest had confirmed what they already knew, having been briefed by a member of the US military.

Ms Norgrove's family said in a statement: "A series of chance events all going the wrong way and an error of judgement by one of the special forces resulted in our daughter's death.

"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."

Giving a narrative verdict at the end of the inquest, Wiltshire coroner David Ridley said TM5 had "acted unaware of Linda's presence".

Mr Ridley said: "What I've drawn from this hearing is that the operative 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, unaware of Linda's presence."

Initial reports suggested Ms Norgrove had been killed when her captors detonated a suicide vest.

Ms Norgrove was helping the Afghan people rebuild their country

The court heard these reports had been "untrue" and that it had taken 42 hours for the truth to emerge.

The investigation blamed a debrief "shrouded in disappointment" for the lack of clarity.

TM5, it was said, had declared his use of a grenade to his team leader, TM1, after the debrief but TM1's "sheer disappointment and sheer shock" over the failure of the operation meant the declaration was immediately passed up the military chain of command.

Several members of the rescue team have since been disciplined, and the US military is said to be reviewing tactics and techniques for hostage rescue missions.

Ms Norgrove, 36, from the Western Isles, was helping the Afghan people rebuild their war-torn country when she was taken hostage during an ambush in Kunar province last September.

Her parents have set up a foundation in her memory to help women, families and children in Afghanistan.