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US forces under fire for killing hostage
Finally, Chile’s trapped miners set to escape
PML-N files chargesheet against Musharraf
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Special to the tribune US forces under fire for killing hostage Shyam Bhatia in London
The reputation of the US army in Afghanistan, and US Special Forces in particular, has taken a battering following the revelation that a British civilian hostage was killed by so-called friendly fire. When 26-year-old Linda Norgrove’s death was first disclosed last week, the UK government was briefed by US forces to say she died when one of her kidnappers detonated his suicide vest.
But it now turns out that the team of US Navy Seals deployed to rescue her “botched” their mission within minutes of launching an attack on the kidnappers hideout in the remote Korengal valley. Norgrove’s fate was sealed when the attack team threw a live grenade into the room where she was being held along with other women and some children. Her would-be saviours had earlier been briefed that she was about to be moved to another secret location, possible across the border into Pakistan. British and military and civilian experts are now asking why it was necessary for the American rescue team to throw a fragmentation grenade — filled with razor sharp steel shrapnel — into her room. It is a measure of how seriously the UK is taking Norgrove’s death that British PM David Cameron felt it necessary to call a press conference last Monday to announce the circumstances in which she died. Earlier, US President Barack Obama called up Cameron to express his condolences. British officials are talking about “deliberate deceit” by US intelligence officials and how in the past US officials have been less than candid about the use of torture in the war against terror. Some of the other epithets that are being used in London to describe US military operations are “botched”, “gung ho” and “bungled.” Questions are also being asked about why US forces and not their British counterparts were used in the failed attempt to rescue Norgrove. This question continues to be asked despite PM Cameron’s assertion that “It would have been quite unorthodox to overrule and insist on a particular set of forces to carry out an operation against the advice of extremely talented and professional commanders on the ground.” Armies operating in foreign territory are prone to make mistakes. Indian peacekeepers were blamed for their mistakes allegedly committed in Sri Lanka, the British were blamed for their goof ups in Malaya and elsewhere. But the Americans, who have so many forces deployed around the world, are statistically more likely to make even more mistakes and attract the criticism that inevitably follows. Norgroves’s death inevitably invokes memories of other civilians who have died in other countries at the hands of the US military. One of the most notorious cases of civilian deaths at US hands was the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam when hundreds of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians were sexually abused, tortured, beaten and mutilated at the hands of a US army unit.
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Finally, Chile’s trapped miners set to escape
Copiapo, October 12 The men have spent 68 days in the hot, humid bowels of a small gold and copper mine in Chile’s far northern Atacama desert after an August 5 collapse, and now face a harrowingly claustrophobic journey to the surface in specially-made capsules.
Wives, children, parents and friends are waiting on an arid, rocky hillside around 2,050 feet (625-metres) directly above them at a tent settlement dubbed “Camp Hope.” An entire nation, still recovering from a devastating February earthquake, is ready to celebrate. “Right now I’m calm, though still very anxious. I hope my nerves don’t betray me when the rescue starts,” said Jessica Salgado, whose husband Alex is trapped below, as the sun rose over the camp. “The first thing I’m going to do is hug him hard, tell him how much I love him, and how I’ve missed him all this time,” she added. She said Mining Minister Laurence Golborne had told the men’s relatives that rescuers could start to raise them from the depths a few hours before his Tuesday midnight estimate. Many miners’ relatives staged vigils as the climax neared. Noemi Donoso, whose 43-year-old son-in-law Samuel Avalos is among the trapped, sat praying in a tent with four family members, their hands joined together to form a circle, singing hymns and chanting “hallelujah” and “glory to God.” Her daughter had just left to have her hair done in a makeshift hairdressers in another of the camp’s tents. “She went to the salon to get fixed up so she can look pretty when she receives him,” Donoso said, as excited school children ran around the camp with face paint on. Rescuers on Monday successfully tested a capsule, dubbed “Phoenix” after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes, after they partially lined the narrow escape duct with metal tubes to avoid any last-minute disasters. They originally found the men, miraculously all alive, 17 days after the collapse with a bore hole the width of grapefruit, which then became an umbilical cord used to pass hydration gels, water and food to keep them alive during one of the world’s most ambitious rescue operations. — Reuters
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PML-N files chargesheet against Musharraf
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has issued a chargesheet against former President Pervez Musharraf, demanding that the former president be brought back through Interpol and tried under Article 6 of the constitution. The chargesheet, containing 17 allegations and seven demands, comes at a time when Musharraf has unleashed a relentless campaign against PML-N chief and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on the platform of his newly formed All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) in the UK and called for his trial on treason and murder charges. The former General had toppled the elected government on October 12, 1999, the PML-N noted, while holding him responsible for killing 800 soldiers in the Kargil operation. The chargesheet also accused the APML founder of targeting people politically by using the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), murder of Akbar Bugti, making false cases against the Baloch leadership, kidnapping of thousands of Baloch political workers, abduction of Pakistanis for other countries, corruption, the Lal Masjid operation, the May 12 incident, bombing at Karsaaz in October 2007, National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) and participating in elections donning the army uniform. According to the channel, the chargesheet also demanded the government to sentence Musharraf for his actions against the media. The former ruler had attacked the judiciary during his tenure by imposing emergency and violating the constitution, it noted, and alleged that the 67-year-old was also involved in a stock exchange scam, imposition of martial law against the constitution, waging war against his own people, and illegal recruitments in the PIA, NHA and OGDCL. (With inputs from ANI)
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US asks China to let Nobel laureate’s wife move freely 40 killed in Ukraine mishap British school bans fountain pens
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The reputation of the US army in Afghanistan, and US Special Forces in particular, has taken a battering following the revelation that a British civilian hostage was killed by so-called friendly fire. When 26-year-old Linda Norgrove’s death was first disclosed last week, the UK government was briefed by US forces to say she died when one of her kidnappers detonated his suicide vest.
