The Australian

Reports say more journalists killed By Ian MacKinnon, Peshawar November 23, 2001

THREE more foreign journalists were reported to have been killed in Afghanistan yesterday, as the body of murdered Australian cameraman Harry Burton was being flown back to Sydney last night for his funeral in Hobart.

Iranian state radio reported the new deaths, which takes to 10 the number of foreign journalists killed in the conflict. It said Northern Alliance officials had confirmed the deaths "but the nationality of the reporters is not yet clear, and neither is the identity of the killers".

As the shocking details of Burton's murder in a bloody roadside ambush with three colleagues on Monday continued to emerge, two senior editors from the Reuters news agency, where Burton, 33, worked, accompanied the body to Singapore to be met by his partner, Joanne Collins, for the journey to Australia. His funeral is expected to be held at Hobart's St Mary's Cathedral on Wednesday.

Examination of the slain journalists, including Burton's Reuters colleague Afghan Azizullah Haidari, 33, Spaniard Julio Fuentes, 42, and Italian Maria Grazia Cutuli, 39, showed they had been stoned as well as shot, and there was no evidence to indicate robbery as the motive.

"This was not an armed robbery," said Jack Redden, the Reuters bureau chief in Pakistan.

Redden, who had met the convoy drivers, said the cars were stopped by three armed men, one of whom was quoted as saying: "If you think the Taliban are finished, you're wrong."

A Red Cross official said examination of the corpses indicated the victims had been "brutally murdered". He said: "They were stoned and fired upon with a number of bullets in their chest and arms and other parts of the body."

The four had been in two cars at the head of an eight-car convoy of journalists that had become spread out on the three-hour drive from Jalalabad to Kabul.

When they approached an area near Sarobi, a district bordering the influence of the Northern Alliance and southern Pashtun commanders and notorious for banditry, their cars were stopped by six gunmen.

The men warned the journalists not to proceed further because of fighting with renegade Taliban elements ahead. But at that moment a mini-bus driver coming in the other direction told them it was clear and they became suspicious.

As the journalists' cars tried to back up, they were ordered from their cars at gunpoint, separated from their drivers and translator and told to walk up the hill away from the road. When they refused, the gunmen stoned then killed them. The drivers were allowed to go free but with a warning that they should never transport foreign journalists again.

The bodies were recovered on Tuesday after a local Pashtun commander, Hazrat Ali, sent his men to look for them and bring them back to Jalalabad.

On Wednesday they were transported to Islamabad, where Azizullah Haidari was buried immediately, in line with Muslim custom.

Few of the many journalists waiting in Jalalabad have ventured along the road to Kabul and many have opted to return to Peshawar.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2001