Captured journalist 'ignored advice' - Miliband.FOREIGN Secretary David Miliband yesterday acknowledged that freed British journalist Stephen Farrell John Stephen Farrell (known as Stephen Farrell) is a British journalist who has been the Middle East correspondent for The Times. In July 2007, he joined The New York Times as a correspondent in Baghdad[1]. had ignored "very strong advice" by travelling to the area of Afghanistan where he was kidnapped. The operation to free the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times reporter left four people dead, including a British paratrooper. Mr Farrell's Afghan interpreter Sultan Munadi, and Corporal John Harrison
John Harrison (March 24 1693 – March 24 1776) was an English clockmaker who revolutionised and extended the possibility of safe long distance sea travel in the , were killed in Wednesday's raid. Mr Miliband said: "He (Farrell) was obviously on the one hand very brave and on the other hand he went against very strong advice that it was extremely dangerous Exteremely Dangerous is a 1999 four part series for ITV starring Sean Bean as an ex-MI5 undercover agent convicted of the brutal murder of his wife and child who goes on the run to try and clear his name. He sets out to follow up a strange clue sent to him in prison. to be in that area." The mission to free Mr Farrell has provoked anger among senior Army officers because he apparently ignored warnings from police and village elders not to enter the Taliban-controlled area. The journalist - who holds dual British and Irish nationality - was snatched with Mr Munadi last Saturday as he reported on the aftermath of a Nato air strike in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan, in which at least 70 people were killed. Mr Miliband said the military operation to free the journalist took place because there was no better alternative. He explained: "This was an operation that only took place because we thought there was no better alternative and it only took place after very considered military judgment that it was a mission with the possibility of success." But the raid prompted criticism from Afghan journalists amid claims that negotiators were close to a breakthrough. Mr Miliband ruled out the need for an inquiry into the operation: "I don't think an inquiry is needed, all the right procedures were followed." |
|
||||||||||||||

Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion