8th journalist slaying sparks media retreat

By David Filipov and Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 11/28/2001

ASHTI QALA, Afghanistan - Several major media organizations pulled out of northern Afghanistan yesterday following the shooting death of a Swedish television correspondent as he slept in a guest house compound in Taloqan.

The BBC, known for its global coverage, pulled out its team, as did the major US broadcast networks. Reporters for Reuters exited, and spokesmen for the Associated Press and the Washington Post indicated that their reporters were planning to leave the region.

The Washington Post's executive editor, Leonard Downie, Jr., said his reporters in Kunduz and Taloqan ''found both places to be, in the words of one of them, the wild west.''

Indeed, the murder raised new fears that Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban could return to the lawlessness that plagued the country before the radical Islamic militia took over most of the country in 1996.

Two masked gunmen - identified only as young Afghan men wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles - came over the wall of the compound where several journalists were staying.

''They were very determined. They climbed over a wall and got into the sleeping quarters,'' said Tim Rogers, a correspondent for the British TV company ITN, who said he was the first journalist outside the compound to learn of the attack.

''We are going to kill you,'' one of the gunmen said, as they burst into the home and aimed their guns at two of the four Swedish journalists staying there.

Rogers said the gunmen took cameras, computers, a satellite telephone, and money from journalists working for Aftonbladet. They spared the reporters only after their Afghan interpreter pleaded for their lives.

They then moved to the next room, where Ulf Stroemberg, 42, a cameraman for Sweden's TV4, was staying. ''As soon as he opened the door there was a bang,'' said Rolf Porseryd, the reporter with whom Stroemberg shared a room. ''Ulf fell over me. `I'm hit. I'm shot,''' the Associated Press quoted Porseryd as saying.

Stroemberg's death was the eighth among Western journalists in recent weeks. More reporters have been killed than have US-led troops hunting for Osama bin Laden.

Journalists have become targets not only because they are defenseless, loaded with expensive equipment, and carrying plenty of cash, but also because for hundreds of former Taliban supporters still armed and roaming Afghanistan, they symbolize the coalition that brought about the Taliban's rapid collapse.

Also yesterday, a Canadian freelance reporter was detained in Taliban-held territory near Kandahar, according to the editor of the weekly newspaper he writes for. Initial reports indicated that Ken Hechtman was being held by the Taliban, but Montreal Mirror editor Alastair Sutherland said later that the identity of his captors was unclear.

The reporters' deaths, as well as a spate of armed robberies of journalists, also highlight the difficulty the Northern Alliance has had in controlling the territory it has won from the Taliban.

Previous attacks have all taken place along roads and near front lines. Yesterday's shooting was significant because for the first time, assailants appeared to be targeting journalists where they are staying.

In Stockholm, TV4's program director, Jan Scherman, said yesterday that the network was pulling its journalists out ''as soon as possible.''

''My editor in chief, Richard Tate, has ordered all ITN journalists in northern Afghanistan out of the country,'' Rogers said. ''The general feeling is that people want to leave the country, regroup, and reassess the security situation.''

Dozens of foreign journalists have been based in Taloqan, covering the Northern Alliance's sweep through former Taliban territory, including the city of Kunduz, 37 miles to the west, which fell Monday.

For journalists, northern Afghanistan was a safer place when there were clear front lines. Journalists were with the Northern Alliance, allies of the US-led campaign against bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. The Taliban side was a no-go zone for foreign reporters.

Now there is no front, and an armed former Taliban fighter can go just about anywhere.

Although the Taliban have surrendered in their northern strongholds of Taloqan and Kunduz, their former fighters have not been disarmed. Kunduz and Taloqan are still teeming with armed men who until two weeks ago were Taliban sympathizers.

It was not possible yesterday to get a precise count of how many news organizations joined the convoys of departing media headed for safer ground in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. And in some cases, the reason for the departure was twofold: safety and the fact that the news had shifted to other fronts.

Jeffrey Schneider, an ABC spokesman, said the network's crew that left for Dushanbe was ''planning to pull out anyway, but clearly we have greater concerns for all our folks on the ground.''

NBC said its correspondent was being relocated elsewhere in the country for ''logistical reasons.''

Still, several media outlets, CNN and National Public Radio among them, indicated that their reporters were staying in the Taloqan-Kunduz region. The Globe moved its reporter in Taloqan to Dashti Qala, where there is little Taliban presence. The paper also has reporters in Kabul, as do several other news organizations.

In Taloqan, some journalists painted a picture of a place inexorably slipping into lawlessness. CBS correspondent Byron Pitts, speaking by phone from Dushanbe yesterday, said: ''In recent days, you began to see the climate change in the city ... A number of soldiers left to go south. The media, which suddenly brought in the flush of money, were beginning to leave. You saw more beggars on the street and young men being more aggressive when they walked past you.''

Pitts said the CBS compound was a few blocks from where the Swedish journalist was killed. Yesterday morning ''we took one vote, and it was unanimous: We should leave,'' he said. ''It was frightening. ... The main story of the region, the fall of Kunduz had passed. All of us love a great story, but we love our wives.''

Before yesterday, there were two episodes in which journalists were killed. Four - two from the Reuters news agency, one from the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, and one from the Spanish newspaper El Mundo - were ambushed and killed last week by unidentified forces on the road between the eastern city of Jalalabad and the capital, Kabul. On Nov. 11, two French radio journalists and a writer for a German magazine died when the armored vehicle in which they were traveling was ambushed by the Taliban near Dashti Qala.

Yesterday, the BBC's security specialist gave his own assessment of the risk for journalists in Taloqan. He advised that they pull out immediately.

Globe Staff reporter Ellen Barry contributed to this report.

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 11/28/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001

Answers

They probably thought this would be a repeat of the controlled Gulf War.

Of course, the media have been front and center for most of this. Thinking of the anthrax letters.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001