Al-Jazeera television has demanded that NATO immediately release two of its journalists it says were arrested by coalition forces in Afghanistan this week in an effort to censor its war coverage.
The Doha-based television network said in a statement that two cameramen had been arrested as part of “an attempt by the ISAF leadership to suppress its comprehensive coverage of the Afghan war.”
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had said in a statement earlier this week that it had “captured a suspected Taliban media and propaganda facilitator, who participated in filming election attacks.”
Al-Jazeera named the journalists as Mohammad Nader, detained in Kandahar Province on Wednesday, and Rahmatullah Nekzed, who was arrested on Monday in Ghazni Province south of Kabul.
Kandahar Governor Toryalai Wesa confirmed Nader’s arrest, telling reporters: “We are doing our best to win his release as soon as possible.”
Al-Jazeera said ISAF had written to the network about the arrests, obliquely accusing the two men of working with the insurgency.
“The insurgents use propaganda, often delivered through news organizations as a way to influence and in many cases intimidate the Afghan population,” it quoted ISAF as saying.
“Coalition and Afghan forces have a responsibility to interdict the activities of these insurgent propaganda networks,” al-Jazeera quoted ISAF as saying.
Al-Jazeera has “strongly rejected the claims and insisted the two were innocent,” the statement said.
The network said that it would “continue to maintain its coverage on the basis of fair and impartial journalism in line with its Code of Ethics and will not bias its coverage in favor of any party or coalition despite pressures being imposed on it.”
In related news, the Pentagon confirmed that all nine troops killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week — the worst for the coalition forces in four years — were Americans, although it refused to provide further information on why the aircraft went down.
NATO said that there were no reports of enemy fire in a rugged area in the Daychopan district of Zabul Province where the crash took place on Tuesday. However, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told reporters by telephone that insurgents shot down the helicopter.
The US Defense Department released the identities of the troops late on Wednesday, saying four were sailors and the rest were soldiers.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of