Four journalists were shot dead after armed men ambushed them on the road from Jalalabad to the Afghan capital, Kabul, yesterday.
The four were part of an eight-car convoy driving through the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar when armed men stopped them near a bridge approximately 50 miles from Kabul.
A fifth man, a translator, who was with the group was also reported missing last night.
Two cars leading the convoy were stopped and the occupants forced out by the soldiers. The driver of the second car, which was carrying two of the journalists, told The Irish Times last night that the car in front was stopped at the bridge at around 11.30 a.m. local time.
"He fled from the car towards the road to Kabul and shots were fired after him." He said the gang then turned Kalashnikov rifles towards his car and ordered him and the two journalists out.
"They forced the two journalists to walk with them to a river down the side of the road. They told me to sit in my car." He said as they pushed the journalists towards the river they shot three bullets each into their backs. One was hit on the back of the head with a rifle before he was shot.
The driver said the gunmen then told him that reports that the Taliban were beaten were wrong. "This is our revenge," they said, before he was ordered to drive away.
The convoy had set out from the Spinghar hotel in Jalalabod where over 100 foreign journalists, including this correspondent, are staying, at around 8.30 a.m. yesterday morning. After the two cars were ambushed, the convoy was stopped and the other cars turned back swiftly for Jalalabad.
Shocked and distressed colleagues arrived back at the Spinghar at around 2.45 p.m. with the tragic news.
Immediately, journalists contacted the office of the newly-appointed governor for the province to plead to send an armed escort to the area of the ambush to try to recover the missing reporters.
Commander Hajdi Shaeer led a team of 30 soldiers toward the area yesterday evening but was forced to turn back due to gunfire. He said last night he did not get beyond 15 km from where the journalists were ambushed.
He explained this was the point where the Eastern Province ends and Kabul Province started. "We had no authority to go any further. We will go back in the morning with more soldiers and try to retrieve the bodies." He said it was his information the bodies were still on the ground.
The Eastern 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.
Journalists have been advised not to take any more journeys until the situation stabilises.
The four ambushed journalists were named last night as Reuters staff Australian television cameraman, Harry Burton; Azizullah Haidari, an Afghan-born Reuters photographer; Italian newspaper journalists, Maria Grazia Cutuli who worked for Corriere della Sera, and Julio Fuentes, who worked for the Spanish paper El Mundo.
The ambush yesterday is a reflection of the fragility in the region with a split in anti-Taliban ranks and different factions seeking control of various regions.
Meanwhile, at least seven people were killed and several wounded yesterday in a second day of US air strikes on Shamshad town in the east Afghan province of Nangarhar. Another 30 people were killed in US bombing raids in the same area, 8 km from the Afghan-Pakistan border on Sunday.