Two Associated Press journalists shot in Afghanistan

The Guardian – by Emma Graham-Harrison

An Afghan police officer has shot dead a foreign photographer and badly injured another in the country’s violent east, as they were covering preparations for the country’s presidential election.

The man opened fire on Anja Niedringhaus and Kathy Gannon from theAssociated Press in a police headquarters in Khost province, after the women arrived with a convoy of election materials on Friday.  

Niedringhaus died almost immediately from wounds to her head, a health official said, and Gannon was taken to hospital with less serious injuries, and was in a stable condition. Both were veteran correspondents with long experience covering Afghanistan.

AP journalist Kathy Gannon sits with girls at a school in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2011. The photo was taken by Niedringhaus

It was the third attack on journalists in Afghanistan in less than a month. The Swedish-British radio reporter Nils Horner was killed in downtown Kabul on 11 March. Less than two weeks later the leading Afghan reporter Ahmad Sardar was gunned down with his wife and two children at a Kabul hotel where they had gone to celebrate the Persian new year.

The AP journalists had travelled to Tani district as part of a government convoy from the provincial capital, but in their own car. They were waiting in the vehicle at the entrance to the police compound when a police lieutenant named as Naquibullah came over and opened fire on them. No one else was injured.

“He has been arrested and is under investigation,” said a spokesman for the provincial governor Mubarez Zadran.

The assailant was from another part of Afghanistan and had been working in Khost province for about a year, he said.

A photograph taken by Niedringhaus of Afghan men loading a truck with election materials to be delivered to polling centres in Khost province. Photograph: AP

A Taliban spokesman said the insurgent group was not involved in the attack. “This appears to be a private issue. It has no connection with the Taliban and we are not claiming responsibility for it,” Zabihullah Mujahid told the Guardian.

The AP paid tribute to both journalists. “Anja and Kathy together have spent years in Afghanistan covering the conflict and the people there. Anja was a vibrant, dynamic journalist, well-loved for her insightful photographs, her warm heart and joy for life. We are heartbroken at her loss,” said the executive editor Kathleen Carroll, from New York.

• Mokhtar Amiri contributed to this report

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/04/foreign-journalists-shot-afghanistan