WRONG MESSAGE SENT

British SAS personnel are reportedly livid at the scuttling of an operation to rescue executed al Qaeda hostage Edwin Dyer:

“We knew where he was. We are convinced we could have got him out alive, but Whitehall bottled it.

“Whether it was the Directorate of Special Forces, the military chiefs or Government ministers, we don’t know. We have our suspicions.

“Of course there was risk, there always is in hostage rescue. The group said they were going to kill him anyway, so what was there to lose?

“And if we did it, it would have sent a powerful message to these sorts of people not to screw with Brits.”

Failure to mount a rescue sends an equally powerful message, unfortunately.