Two journalists from The Associated Press (AP) have been seriously wounded in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan, with one losing a foot, the media group and the military said yesterday.
The Spanish photographer and Indonesian videographer were in a military vehicle that was hit by a roadside bomb on Tuesday in Kandahar province, one of the main battlefields in the US and NATO-led battle against the Taliban.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said some of the US soldiers traveling with the pair were also wounded by the improvised explosive device (IED) but it could not immediately provide details.
PHOTO: AFP
“There was an IED strike on a military vehicle that resulted in injuries to two AP reporters,” said Captain Glen Parents, ISAF spokesman in southern Afghanistan. “The reporters were evacuated and treated by ISAF forces.”
The agency identified the photographer as award-winning Emilio Morenatti, 40, from Spain. He was badly wounded in the leg and underwent an operation that resulted in the loss of his foot.
The videographer was Andi Jatmiko, 44, from Indonesia, who suffered leg injuries and two broken ribs, it said.
AP president Tom Curley said the agency had not suffered such serious casualties for some time.
“In that welcome quiet, we sometimes lose sight of the risks that journalists like Emilio and Andi encounter every day as they staff the frontlines of the most dangerous spots of the world,” he said.
The journalists were in a convoy of soldiers from the newly deployed Stryker Brigade, part of US President Barack Obama’s pledge to commit 21,000 more soldiers and military trainers to beat back the insurgency.
The units had deployed into the southern Kandahar and Zabul provinces last week to increase security working along with the Afghan forces ahead of presidential and provincial council elections next Thursday, Parents said.
Afghan officials say at least nine districts are still under insurgent control which would make voting unlikely. Security operations were under way in around three dozen to secure them for the elections, they have said.
“ISAF acknowledges the work that reporters do alongside us,” Parents said. “Those reporters share the same risks that our soldiers do and our thoughts and prayers are with the two injured reporters and their families.”
Meanwhile, seven Afghan policemen were killed and seven wounded in two separate attacks in Kabul and the north of the country, officials said yesterday.
A police bomb disposal team were returning to the capital late on Tuesday after defusing a bomb in Paghman district some 30km west of Kabul when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, the interior ministry said.
“Five brave policemen were martyred and four others were wounded,” ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
Bashary blamed the attack on “enemies of peace and stability,” a term used by Afghan authorities to describe Taliban militia. He said the bomb was remotely detonated.
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