September 11, 2009

By Kim Sengupta and Nigel Morris (View author info)

The operation to free the journalist Stephen Farrell was enmeshed in controversy and recrimination last night as Gordon Brown appeared to distance himself from ordering the rescue bid which ended in British and Afghan deaths. Now the father of Sultan Munadi, the Afghan colleague of Mr Farrell who was killed in the raid, has demanded to know why ongoing negotiations, which he believes could have led to a peaceful outcome, were abandoned in favour of a military strike. Karban Mohammed told The Independent that his son had called him 90 minutes before he was shot to say he was confident that he and Mr Farrell would soon be freed by the Taliban fighters holding them. In the 15-minute telephone call Mr Munadi reassured his family that talks were going well and the likely timing of the release would be when the mourning period was over for the 100 or so people killed in last week's Nato air strikes on hijacked tankers.....On Wednesday, Gordon Brown had basked in the limelight, making a public statement soon after the operation. By yesterday, as anger grew, Downing Street was in contortions, first insisting that the Prime Minister was merely "consulted" over the decision to launch the operation. ....Mr Mohammed, a man of quiet dignity, repeated the question he had been asking himself for the last day. "Why did they do this? Why did the military not wait for the talks? It is not just my son who died, there were others, a young British soldier I am told. His parents must be feeling very sad as well, please send them my sympathy. We are very unhappy about how this was done, they have shown no feeling for us. We would just like an explanation, we deserve an explanation." That explanation has not been forthcoming from Nato, or the Afghan government, or the UN. It is unclear who took the final decision to press General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of Nato forces in the country, to mount the raid. ....But, among many Afghans, there is a feeling that Afghan lives don't count for as much as Western ones. They point out that while Mr Farrell was whisked to safety, Mr Munadi's body was left abandoned on the ground, to be found by the householder, Mohammed Nabi, who says his sister-in-law was among those killed. Fazul Rahim, an Afghan producer for the American network CBS News, said the foreign forces' actions showed a lack of respect. "It shows a double standard between a foreign life and an Afghan life," he said. Naqibullah Taib, of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association, called on foreign news organisations to do more for the safety of local staff.

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