Afghanistan: British soldier killed in raid to free US reporter

by Kal El on September 9, 2009 · Comments

This reporter should get down on his knees and thank whatever god he prays to for the bravery of the British Army.

London, 9 Sept. (AKI) – A British soldier and an Afghan interpreter were killed in a NATO pre-dawn raid in Afghanistan to free a kidnapped reporter for The New York Times on Wednesday. British journalist Stephen Farrell telephoned the newspaper early Wednesday to say he had been rescued, the paper said on its website.

Farrell was rescued in a helicopter raid by NATO forces. He said he was “extracted” by “a lot of soldiers” after a fierce firefight, the Times said.

The reporter said his Taliban captors ran outside when they heard helicopters approaching, as did he and his interpreter, Sulta Munadi.

“It was obviously a raid,” Farrell said. “We thought they would kill us, there were bullets all around. I could hear British and Afghan voices.”

Munadi – a reporter who was working as a translator – advanced shouting: “Journalist! Journalist!” But the translator was shot and collapsed, Farrell said.

He watched in horror as the translator dropped in a hail of bullets. He said he did not know if the shots came from militants or from the rescuing forces.

Farrell said he dived for cover in a ditch and shouted: “British hostage!”

The New York Times said it and Farrell’s family did not know the military operation was taking place.

Farrell was kidnapped on Saturday with Munadi while investigating a NATO air strike last week in Kunduz on two oil tankers hijacked by the Taliban.

Unconfirmed reports said 70 Afghan civilians died in the strike which has provoked international outrage.

Farrell and Munadi’s driver, who escaped from the kidnappers, told the newspaper they had been interviewing villagers about the bombing at the site of the burned-out fuel tankers.

The driver said he ran away across fields after seeing a group of about 10 armed militants running towards them.

Munadi a 34-year-old interpreter and father of two, was reportedly working in Afghanistan while on a break from university studies in Germany.

Britain’s ministry of defence would not release any details about the soldier who was killed in the raid but said his family had been informed.

It is understood the soldier was a member of a British special forces unit.

Farrell, aged 46, was previously abducted at gunpoint in Iraq in 2004 in the city of Falluja while working for The London Times newspaper. He holds dual British-Irish nationality.

Farrell is the second New York Times journalist to be kidnapped in Afghanistan in the past year.

In June, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Rohde and his Afghan colleague were abducted last November in the Afghan capital, Kabul and held for over seven months.

They were moved across the border to Pakistan from where they escaped from their captors in June.

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  • filthykafir
    So, the life of a highly trained, dedicated, patriotic, and honorable British soldier was exchanged for that of an NYT reporter (stupid enough to have been abducted for the second time). Bad trade; everybody loses.
  • I feel for the family of the British soldier who gave his life for a slimy New York times Reporter. My only guess is that he never read the Times.
  • Beejj
    I don't wish to sound like a faulty gramophone record (for those who know what such a thing is - I have thousands of them), but I ask again, "Why in God's name are our military in Afghanistan?" Does anyone imagine the Taliban can be defeated? Clearly, I do not. Not because they are valiant fighters or some kind of supermen - they, like Hizbollah and Hamas, are cowardly scum who dare not don a military uniform but strike from the shadows as did the America-funded and Gadaffi-supplied IRA, rot their souls. Is it believed that if the Taliban are exterminated there would be no place to train future terrorists? Ever heard of Africa? Does anyone believe that the many deaths and expenditure of billions of dollars are sacrifices in a worthy cause? Karzai and his minions are a worthy cause?

    Vacate these Muslim hell-holes at once and pour the money saved into solar energy research so that we might sooner be freed of the heavy shackles of oil dependency. Once achieved, this will mean America will no longer have to give its taxpayers' money to vile Islamic countries such as Egypt and those festering Gaza strip caricatures of human beings. But wait ...... might there be powerful petroleum interests at work in the USA that would scupper such a plan?

    To lose a son, brother or father in a just war is a crushing price to pay, but to do so in such a doomed and damned and criminally unjustifiable venture is intolerable. These brave kids will never fail in their duty, but their political leaders see no further than the next dollar.
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