BBC reporter among 16 dead in Afghanistan
Pastor Dale Morgan
BBC reporter among 16 dead in Afghanistan*
KABUL (AFP) - - An Afghan reporter for the BBC was found dead in
southern Afghanistan on Sunday as authorities reported that 15 other
people were killed in a wave of unrest linked to a Taliban-led insurgency.
The reporter, working in the volatile southern province of Helmand, was
kidnapped on Saturday and his body was found near the provincial capital
Lashkar Gah, the Afghan Independent Journalists Association said.
An employee with the BBC in Kabul confirmed on condition of anonymity
the death of the reporter for its Dari and Pashtu services.
Afghanistan's ministry of information said in a statement it "strongly
condemns the brutal killing".
The reporter had been taken from his home and murdered "for being a
journalist," it said.
"In Afghanistan terrorists, smugglers and the enemies of law are a big
threat to journalists," it said.
Helmand sees some of the worst violence in an insurgency by the
extremist Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.
Several journalists have been attacked in Afghanistan this year, but the
killing of the BBC reporter appeared to be the first in 2008.
Five Afghan journalists were slain in Afghanistan in 2007, according to
the Kabul-based South Asia Media Commission.
Among those killed was reporter Ajmal Naqshbandi, who was beheaded by
Taliban insurgents in Helmand in April after they captured him with
Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo.
Mastrogiacomo was freed after President Hamid Karzai's government
released five jailed Taliban members in a deal that was criticised by
the United States and others.
In other violence on Sunday, Taliban rebels ambushed a police convoy on
a main road in the central province of Ghazni and killed six policemen,
the interior ministry said. Two civilians died in the crossfire.
"The enemy ambushed today one of our police convoys. As a result, six
police and two civilians were killed," ministry spokesman Zemarai
Bashary told AFP.
In another attack blamed on the Taliban, a district deputy governor and
three of his bodyguards were killed in an ambush in the eastern province
of Khost, provincial governor Arsala Jamal told AFP.
One man was wounded in Khost's provincial capital when a bomb exploded
under a bridge about 50 metres (yards) from a regional UN office,
provincial spokesman Khaibar Pashtun said.
Elsewhere, Taliban fighters ambushed a police patrol in the southern
province of Uruzgan in the early morning hours, killing one policeman
and wounding two others, provincial police chief Juma Gul Hemat said.
Police later arrested five Taliban gunmen and 13 suspected militants, he
added.
Meanwhile, two Taliban were killed in Helmand when a mine they were
planting in a road exploded prematurely, said provincial police chief
Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.
The Taliban were toppled from government in a US-led invasion for
harbouring the Al-Qaeda network involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Insurgent violence was its deadliest last year, with 8,000
conflict-related fatalities. Most of the dead were Taliban fighters
though about 1,500 civilians lost their lives.
The latest violence came as US First Lady Laura Bush made a short trip
to Afghanistan to meet Karzai and reaffirm Washington's support for the
troubled country.