Deadly Afghan raid frees kidnapped reporter

updated 7:06 p.m. ET Sept. 9, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan - During the first two days of captivity, The New York Times reporter and his Afghan translator were optimistic about being released. Then more Taliban came to the hide-out and taunted the captives about an Italian journalist who was freed while his Afghan interpreter was beheaded.

The menace grew — until British commandos launched a rescue raid. The reporter survived; his Afghan colleague died in a volley of gunfire as he shouted "Journalist! Journalist!" Four others, including a British soldier, also were killed.

Stephen Farrell, who was not injured in the rescue Wednesday, is one of a half-dozen foreign journalists to be kidnapped in Afghanistan over the last several years. His Times colleague, David Rohde, was abducted by militants south of Kabul last November and eventually escaped his captors while being held in Pakistan.

Obstacles for journalists
The kidnappings illustrate some of the obstacles for reporters in covering an increasingly lethal war. August saw a record number of U.S. troops die in combat, and bombings wounded three journalists embedded with them: two from The Associated Press and one from CBS Radio News.

Farrell, 46, exposed himself to a different danger. He and his 34-year-old translator, Sultan Munadi, ventured without military escort to the site of a NATO airstrike on two hijacked fuel tankers in a Taliban-controlled area of northern Afghanistan to interview villagers about civilian casualties from the attack.

It was an important story. The top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, had made protecting Afghan civilians a top priority, and there were conflicting claims of how many civilians had died in the bombing Friday. Police had warned reporters of the dangers of traveling to the village in Kunduz province, and other Western journalists, including some from the AP, went there in the company of NATO forces.

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said reporters in the field are allowed a great deal of leeway, and that they are the best ones to judge the level of risk. He added that the newspaper would carry out a security review after the latest abduction.

The Times reported that while Farrell and Munadi were interviewing Afghans on Saturday near the site of the airstrike, an old man approached and warned them to leave. Soon after, gunshots rang out and people shouted that Taliban fighters were approaching. Across the Kunduz river, a group of about 10 militants with Kalashnikovs and machine guns were running toward them.

The Taliban captured the journalists. Their driver fled and notified Farrell's colleagues in Kabul.

Men moved several times
The Times kept the kidnappings quiet out of concern for the men's safety, and other media organizations, including the AP, did not report the abductions.

According to Farrell's account in the Times, the captors moved the two men several times and eventually put them in a tiny room. On the third day, some new fighters, apparently more senior Taliban figures from elsewhere in Afghanistan, arrived and discussed moving their hostages out of the Kunduz area.

Afghan officials believed the two Times journalists were originally held by a Mullah Qadir, but were handed off to a commander Mullah Salaam and held in the village of Ghor Tepa, said Lt. Gen. Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, an Afghan army investigator sent to Kunduz by President Hamid Karzai to look into the case.

The Times reported that the militants taunted Munadi, reminding him of the case in 2007 when kidnappers released Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo but beheaded his translator and another Afghan colleague.

Farrell, an experienced reporter who was once held captive in Iraq, thought the atmosphere turned menacing.

Video   Alcohol banned on Kabul base Sept. 9: Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top military commander in Afghanistan, has banned the use of alcohol by all international forces at military headquarters in Kabul. NBC's Brian Williams reports. Nightly News

Before dawn on Wednesday, they could hear helicopters approaching.

"We were all in a room, the Talibs all ran, it was obviously a raid," the Times quoted Farrell as saying.

The militants scattered, though one returned and tipped his gun toward them and then left again without firing. After a while, Farrell and Munadi went out into a courtyard. With Munadi in front, they ran in the dark along the compound's high mud-brick wall. They heard British and Afghan voices — and a flurry of bullets.

‘Journalist! Journalist!’
After moving along the wall for about 60 feet (18 meters), Munadi raised his hands, walked into the open and shouted, "Journalist! Journalist!"

"He was three seconds away from safety," Farrell was quoted as saying. "I thought we were safe. He just walked into a hail of bullets."

Farrell, a dual Irish-British citizen, said he then dived into a ditch. For the next couple of minutes, he focused on the British voices. Then he shouted: "British hostage! British hostage!"

The British voices told him to come near, and that's when he said he saw Munadi.

"He was lying in the same position as he fell," Farrell told the Times. "That's all I know. I saw him go down in front of me. He did not move. He's dead. He was so close; he was just two feet in front of me when he dropped."

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