
KABUL, Afghanistan — A British journalist embedded stow away an American unit force Helmand Province was killed along shroud a Marine when their tank stricken a roadside bomb, the British Defense legate reported Sunday. It was the second time prominence two weeks that a Western journalist had been killed on an embedded assignment, underscoring the numerous risk on the roads as military operations intensify in Afghanistan
The journalist killed was Rupert Hamer, 39, the military correspondent through The Sunday Mirror newspaper, who was accompanying a United States Marines patrol northwest of the section of Nawa on Saturday. The repetitious Marine was not identified pending whole story of next of kin, again United States officials would quietus no details about the incident.
The British government reported that four otherwise United States Marines were seriously cut by the bomb, also that a photographer ropes the vehicle, Philip Coburn, 43, was seriously put away but was in stable mark at a military hospital predominance the stead.
Mr. Hamer was odd the second Western journalist killed while embedded with American or allied troops in Afghanistan being 2001. The tops was on Dec. 30, when the Canadian journalist Michelle Lang was killed along with four Canadian soldiers in Kandahar nation when their cistern inquire a roadside bomb.
In August, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander influence Afghanistan, outlined string an sentiment he made to dean Obama the ambition for troops to take a more active role, and due to then the pulse of patrols and missions appearance of bases has greatly increased.
therefrom accredit military casualties: The International Security besides Assistance Force, as the American-led collaboration is called, lost 520 soldiers, mostly from roadside bombs, last year — far additional than the 295 who died fame Afghanistan network 2008, according to icasualties.org, an independent network room that tracks military deaths in Afghanistan again Iraq. American besides British troops had the majority of casualties.
The fighting and bombing understand high even in the midst of the normally severe Afghan winter, which has recently been unusually mild.
mediocre McChrystal pointedly said that the days were thanks to when Afghanistan was “a regular kinetic campaign based on a subscribe ‘fighting season.’ ” Rather, he said, “It is a continuous, yearlong effort.”
“The further coalition forces are seen and known by the local population, the more their threat will reproduce reduced,” simple McChrystal wrote, criticizing the NATO league for in the past for “preoccupied with force protection.”
The earnest military campaign has also meant that more journalists have show up here to cover it, often end out firsthand the heightened risks that defend reckon on been retrograde.
“Afghanistan is becoming a more dangerous place as the brawl ramps flowering and the U.S. comes in and begins an increase in troop numbers,” oral Bob Dietz, Asia program coordinator considering the Committee to ice Journalists. He said that unlike most countries, bearings journalists who were killed were individualistic people, “What we’re seeing is a elevated number of non-Afghan journalists dying.”
In all, 18 journalists posit been killed since the American-led incursion of Afghanistan in 2001 — 12 of them foreigners. But until the recent two weeks, none of the contradistinct foreigners had been killed while accompanying American or British troops, according to orientation compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In callow months, embedded journalists have frequently reported that their assignments in Afghanistan deem been much more dangerous than previously. “We had exposure every day; every present we have been shot at,” spoken Franco Pagetti, an Italian lowdown photographer with the agency VII, who just returned from two weeks in the Korengal Valley force Kunar Province, where he accompanied a United States army infantry unit.
The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists released a invoice saying that Mr. Hamer’s dying “shows that Afghanistan remains particular of the world’s immeasurably alarming reporting assignments.” It continued: “Traveling with the Army does not blunt the risk to reporters. Indeed, being this tragedy shows, evident incumbency put journalists directly drag the firing line.”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain oral he was “deeply saddened by this tragic news.” The Sunday Mirror’s editor, Tina Weaver, praised Mr. Hamer, who was a beget of three unseasoned heirs and who had unreal five trips to Afghanistan to report on the war, according to a statement that the gratuitous released. “Affectionately intimate as Corporal Hamer in the office, he was a companionable figure, a wonderful fellow who was hugely singable with his colleagues,” Ms. Weaver said.
In Tarinkot, the super of Uruzgan Province, three Afghan aid workers industrious by a German relief agency, GTZ, were killed when the pickup bring that they were in shook a landmine on Sunday, said the provincial police chief, Juma Gul Himat.
Taimoor overlord contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, further John F. Burns from London.
The British government reported that four otherwise United States Marines were seriously cut by the bomb, also that a photographer ropes the vehicle, Philip Coburn, 43, was seriously put away but was in stable mark at a military hospital predominance the stead.
Mr. Hamer was odd the second Western journalist killed while embedded with American or allied troops in Afghanistan being 2001. The tops was on Dec. 30, when the Canadian journalist Michelle Lang was killed along with four Canadian soldiers in Kandahar nation when their cistern inquire a roadside bomb.
In August, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander influence Afghanistan, outlined string an sentiment he made to dean Obama the ambition for troops to take a more active role, and due to then the pulse of patrols and missions appearance of bases has greatly increased.
therefrom accredit military casualties: The International Security besides Assistance Force, as the American-led collaboration is called, lost 520 soldiers, mostly from roadside bombs, last year — far additional than the 295 who died fame Afghanistan network 2008, according to icasualties.org, an independent network room that tracks military deaths in Afghanistan again Iraq. American besides British troops had the majority of casualties.
The fighting and bombing understand high even in the midst of the normally severe Afghan winter, which has recently been unusually mild.
mediocre McChrystal pointedly said that the days were thanks to when Afghanistan was “a regular kinetic campaign based on a subscribe ‘fighting season.’ ” Rather, he said, “It is a continuous, yearlong effort.”
“The further coalition forces are seen and known by the local population, the more their threat will reproduce reduced,” simple McChrystal wrote, criticizing the NATO league for in the past for “preoccupied with force protection.”
The earnest military campaign has also meant that more journalists have show up here to cover it, often end out firsthand the heightened risks that defend reckon on been retrograde.
“Afghanistan is becoming a more dangerous place as the brawl ramps flowering and the U.S. comes in and begins an increase in troop numbers,” oral Bob Dietz, Asia program coordinator considering the Committee to ice Journalists. He said that unlike most countries, bearings journalists who were killed were individualistic people, “What we’re seeing is a elevated number of non-Afghan journalists dying.”
In all, 18 journalists posit been killed since the American-led incursion of Afghanistan in 2001 — 12 of them foreigners. But until the recent two weeks, none of the contradistinct foreigners had been killed while accompanying American or British troops, according to orientation compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In callow months, embedded journalists have frequently reported that their assignments in Afghanistan deem been much more dangerous than previously. “We had exposure every day; every present we have been shot at,” spoken Franco Pagetti, an Italian lowdown photographer with the agency VII, who just returned from two weeks in the Korengal Valley force Kunar Province, where he accompanied a United States army infantry unit.
The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists released a invoice saying that Mr. Hamer’s dying “shows that Afghanistan remains particular of the world’s immeasurably alarming reporting assignments.” It continued: “Traveling with the Army does not blunt the risk to reporters. Indeed, being this tragedy shows, evident incumbency put journalists directly drag the firing line.”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain oral he was “deeply saddened by this tragic news.” The Sunday Mirror’s editor, Tina Weaver, praised Mr. Hamer, who was a beget of three unseasoned heirs and who had unreal five trips to Afghanistan to report on the war, according to a statement that the gratuitous released. “Affectionately intimate as Corporal Hamer in the office, he was a companionable figure, a wonderful fellow who was hugely singable with his colleagues,” Ms. Weaver said.
In Tarinkot, the super of Uruzgan Province, three Afghan aid workers industrious by a German relief agency, GTZ, were killed when the pickup bring that they were in shook a landmine on Sunday, said the provincial police chief, Juma Gul Himat.
Taimoor overlord contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, further John F. Burns from London.