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Bodies of Four Slain Journalists Arrive in Pakistan

TORKHAM, Pakistan (AP) - The bodies of four international journalists were brought out of Afghanistan in wooden coffins on Wednesday, two days after the group was ambushed by gunmen on the road to Kabul.

Red Cross workers escorted the coffins in two jeeps from the Afghan city of Jalalabad to the Torkham border crossing into Pakistan. There, they were transferred to a truck that took them to the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Anti-Taliban militiamen recovered the bodies Tuesday near the town of Serobi, about 35 miles east of Kabul. They were held overnight in a hospital in Jalalabad.

The journalists were Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Azizullah Haidari, an Afghan-born photographer, both of the Reuters news agency; Maria Grazia Cutuli of Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera; and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish daily El Mundo.

On Wednesday night, Haidari's body arrived at his home in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Mourners threw water and flower petals on the coffin as it was carried from a van.

Women wailed and men wept as they viewed Haidari's body. A photographer taking pictures of the ceremony lowered his camera to wipe his eyes when he was overcome with emotion. The mourners then led a procession to a mosque for final prayers before burial.

The ambush occurred Monday as the journalists traveled in a convoy of about eight cars. An anti-Taliban leader in the area said the attackers were bandits, but witnesses said they shouted pro-Taliban slogans.

The area of the ambush recently came under the control of anti-Taliban forces. However, some Taliban stragglers and Arab fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden are still believed to be in the area, and there had been earlier reports of armed robberies on the road.

Six gunmen ordered the journalists out of the cars and tried to force them to climb the mountain, according to Ashiquallah, the driver of the car. He uses only one name.

When they refused, the gunmen beat them, threw stones at them, then shot them, witnesses said.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001