Murdered on road between Jalalabad and Kabul, Taliban stronghold. Stoned, beaten with rifle butts, then shot, according to Aghan taxi drivers.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

Answers

I'm thinking that this whole scene is a lot more personal to the media than usual, starting with Dan Rather's breakdown over 9/11 and then the anthrax letters.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

Good point. You saw how quickly they jumped on the Pakistani journalist who (allegedly) interviewed OBL recently. I don't remember one article defending the guy. I wonder if there was an order from Mullah Omar or OBL, telling the Taliban to kill journalists, thinking it would scare them off.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

Monday November 19 10:15 AM ET

Four Journalists Missing After Ambush Outside Kabul

KABUL, Afghan (Reuters) - Four journalists, including two Reuters reporters, were missing Monday after an ambush by armed men on the road from Pakistan to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Reuters reporters Harry Burton, an Australian television cameraman, and Azizullah Haidari, an Afghan-born photographer, were reported missing and feared dead in the ambush. Spanish journalist Julio Fuentes of El Mundo and Italian journalist Maria Grazia Cutuli of Corriere della Sera were also reported missing.

The journalists were traveling in a convoy through the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar when armed men stopped them near a bridge at Tangi Abrishum some 90 km (55 miles) east of Kabul, according to journalists who escaped the ambush.

Two cars in a convoy of six to eight vehicles were stopped and their occupants forced out by armed men.

A driver at the Kabul bus station said he was driving from the eastern city of Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province, when he saw a body on the road.

He said he stopped and found three more bodies. None had visible injuries except for one man who appeared to have been beaten about the face, he said. One body was that of a woman, he said.

The identities of the bodies were not clear and the driver's account could not be independently corroborated.

After the armed men stopped the convoy, the other cars turned back swiftly for Jalalabad, journalists said.

The province was taken over by anti-Taliban tribal leaders last week, but pockets of Taliban and Arab fighters loyal to the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden are believed to be roaming in many parts of the country.

Several convoys of journalists have driven along the road to Kabul from Jalalabad in the past few days. One group of Filipino reporters said they had been held up and robbed on Sunday.

Three Western reporters were killed in northeast Afghanistan about a week ago when Taliban forces ambushed fighters of the opposition Northern Alliance.

French radio reporters Johanne Sutton, 34, and Pierre Billaud, 31, and German journalist Volker Handloik, 40, a freelance working for Stern magazine, had been riding on the roof of an armored personnel carrier when it came under fire.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001