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 The NPR photojournalist and his Afghan colleague killed in Afghanistan on Sunday died on the first day of an embed with local troops, highlighting the risks for reporters in a country where increasing amounts of territory are off-limits.
Photographer David Gilkey and Zabihullah Tamanna, an Afghan journalist working as a translator, were killed in a Taliban ambush shortly after joining Afghan troops in Helmand province, one of the most volatile areas in the country.
The NPR team, including Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and producer Monika Evstatieva, had just spent several days with coalition troops, including U.S. special forces, before they went over to an Afghan unit, said Colonel Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for the NATO-led military coalition.
The team spent Sunday morning in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah interviewing local officials, according to Shakil Ahmad Tasal, a public affairs officer for the 205th Corps who accompanied the NPR team during the drive.
NPR photojournalist David Gilkey is pictured at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, in a May 29 handout photo.
Michael M. Phillips/Wall Street Journal/Reuters
The team carried a letter from the Afghan Ministry of Defence, directing the soldiers to escort them to the town of Marjah, roughly 30 km (18 miles) away, he said.
While Lashkar Gah has remained in government control, some surrounding areas of Helmand have been under serious pressure from Islamist militants from the Taliban insurgency.
Earlier this year in Marjah, U.S. forces conducted several air strikes to help beleaguered Afghan troops, and a U.S. Special Forces soldier was killed and two others were wounded during a Taliban attack.
On Sunday afternoon, a convoy of six lightly armoured Humvees, which also carried an Afghan general, was nearing Marjah when Taliban gunmen opened fire, pelting the vehicles with small arms and rocket fire.
'We were taking very heavy fire,' Tasal told Reuters.
The Humvee carrying Tamanna and Gilkey was hit by a shell and caught fire, killing the journalists and the soldier driving the vehicle, according to witnesses and NPR.
DOZENS FORM GUARD OF HONOR
A gunfight raged for at least 30 minutes before coalition and Afgh
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