British NATO commandos rescue NYTs journalist, hostage negotiators “angry”

It was back on Sept 5th that I posted about the Taliban vow of revenge for the Kundiz province bombing. During that time, New York Times journalist, Steven Farrell and his 34 year old interpreter, Sultan Munadi, were captured by Taliban.

In a daring and successful raid, British NATO commandos rescued the journalist. The price for Farrell’s freedom was heavy… PM Gordon Brown heaped solemn praise on one, as of yet unnamed British soldier who gave his life in the rescue, and Munadi died in bullets crossfire, just feet from cover and freedom.

According to Farrell’s account in the Times, the captors moved the two men several times and eventually put them in a tiny room. On the third day, some new fighters, apparently more senior Taliban figures from elsewhere in Afghanistan, arrived and discussed moving their hostages out of the Kunduz area.

Afghan officials believed the two Times journalists were originally held by a Mullah Qadir, but were handed off to a commander Mullah Salaam and held in the village of Ghor Tepa, said Lt. Gen. Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, an Afghan army investigator sent to Kunduz by President Hamid Karzai to look into the case.

The Times reported that the militants taunted Munadi, reminding him of the case in 2007 when kidnappers released Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo but beheaded his translator and another Afghan colleague.

Farrell, an experienced reporter who was once held captive in Iraq, thought the atmosphere turned menacing.

Before dawn on Wednesday, they could hear helicopters approaching.

“We were all in a room, the Talibs all ran, it was obviously a raid,” the Times quoted Farrell as saying.

The militants scattered, though one returned and tipped his gun toward them and then left again without firing. After a while, Farrell and Munadi went out into a courtyard. With Munadi in front, they ran in the dark along the compound’s high mud-brick wall. They heard British and Afghan voices — and a flurry of bullets.

After moving along the wall for about 60 feet, Munadi raised his hands, walked into the open and shouted, “Journalist! Journalist!”

“He was three seconds away from safety,” Farrell was quoted as saying. “I thought we were safe. He just walked into a hail of bullets.”

Farrell, a dual Irish-British citizen, said he then dived into a ditch. For the next couple of minutes, he focused on the British voices. Then he shouted: “British hostage! British hostage!”

The British voices told him to come near, and that’s when he said he saw Munadi.

“He was lying in the same position as he fell,” Farrell told the Times. “That’s all I know. I saw him go down in front of me. He did not move. He’s dead. He was so close; he was just two feet in front of me when he dropped.”

Also killed were “…a Taliban commander, the owner of the house in which the captives were held, and an unidentified woman.”

But politics still throws up speedbumps at every obstacle. Despite intel prior to the raid indicating the Taliban may be planning to relocate the hostages yet again, hostage negotiators are pitching a fit angry at the raid’s outcome. The way negotiators saw it, there was no “urgency”.

Hostage negotiators expressed shock and anger at Gordon Brown’s decision to approve a commando raid to free a kidnapped British journalist, saying that they were within days of securing his release through peaceful means.

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Defence sources said that intensive efforts had been made over the weekend to pinpoint the hostages and assess the strength of the Taleban presence. They said there were no guarantees that a negotiated deal would have led to Mr Farrell’s release and that there were fears he could be moved. However, several sources in Kabul said that the captors were, at worst, seeking a ransom. A Western source involved in the talks said: “There was no immediate urgency that they were going to be beheaded or handed over to another group. You cannot move them easily. It’s a very isolated area.”

Another Western official said: “It was totally heavy-handed. If they’d showed a bit of patience and respect they could have got both of them out without firing a bullet. Instead, they ended up having one of their own killed, the Afghan killed and civilians killed. There’s a lot of p****d-off people at the moment.”

Right… because negotiations have worked out so well in past instances… Daniel Pearl, most notably, coming to mind. I have to wonder if Farrell, himself, would have preferred waiting to see if chit chats over tea paid off.

In fact, I ran across an interesting comment from Scottish blogger, Fitaloon noting how most UK media are finding creative ways to assign blame. And, in fact, Fitaloon ponders the sanity of risking soldiers lives to rescue journalists with a penchant for taking life-threatening risks for stories, wandering into battle zones without military escorts.

Certainly, while I feel Farrell was reckless for endangering not only his life, but his entourage and resulting troops effecting his rescue, it’s unfathomable that military would not act to save their lives. Just as most emergency response personnel do not profile victims as “worthy” of saving, our military saves the stupid with the same courage as they do the innocent.

So here, I will cast aside the negotiators anger as absurd and unneccessary, and instead give kudos to Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, for approving the raid. Additionally, in a rare moment of demonstrating some leadership, PM Gordon Brown reiterated that the UK does not negotiate with terrorists.

“Hostage-taking is never justified, and the UK does not make substantive concessions, including paying ransoms.”

What appears obvious is that NATO commanders also approved this rescue, making me wonder if the PM’s stamp of approval was nothing more than semantics. Also in the back of my head is wondering what a CIC Obama… well known for his penchant for “talk” with jihad radicals and ruling despots… would have done under the same circumstance. Since I’m not convinced he would have shown the same stalwart leadership as the PM, I’m hoping we’ll never have to know.

My hat’s off to the British commandos. It was a mission of which they should be proud. And my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the fallen soldier and interpreter.