Video footage showing a failed rescue of kidnapped British aid worker, Linda Norgrove,36 appears she may have been accidentally killed by a grenade thrown by U.S. Special Operations troops involved in the raid, according to U.S. and British officials.
This is the new account of Norgrove’s death. She was taken hostage in eastern Afghanistan last month, contradicted the initial statements by officials in Kabul that one of her captors had detonated a bomb as the rescue team was closing in.
British Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged the possibility, during a conference, that U.S. forces had accidentally killed Norgrove after receiving a call from General David H. Petraeus, top American commander in Afghanistan.
The commander of the Special Operations team, who watched video footage of the raid taken from an over-head surveillance drone, discovered what “looked to him like someone throwing a hand grenade into the area where Miss Norgrove was being held,” explained Navy Captain Gary Kirchner, NATO spokesman in Kabul.
They moved swiftly to correct the record per military officials.
“I have no problem with people making an error,” U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “But the concern here was clearly, ‘Hey, we’ve got to make sure we get the new information out as quickly as possible.'”
