UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said that aid worker Linda Norgrove, who was held hostage in Afghanistan, may have been killed by a US grenade during a bungled rescue attempt.
British and US officials have said they will launch and investigation into how the aid worker was killed during an attempted rescue. Cameron has said that there is evidence that Norgrove may have actually been killed by the rescuers, rather than as initially thought, by her Taliban captors. The initial reports were that Norgrove, who was held in Kunar Province in the east of Afghanistan was killed by an explosion triggered by her captors.
"General Petraeus has since told me that review has revealed evidence to indicate that Linda may not have died at the hand of her captors as originally believed," Cameron says. "That evidence and subsequent interviews with the personnel involved 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."
While Norgrove was a British citizen, she was working with a US aid organization in an area under the authority of US forces, so the decision was made to let the US special forces lead the rescue mission.
Cameron said he was sorry and dismayed by her death, but he said that the responsibility for her tragic death lies ultimately with her captors.
