Two Foreign Journalists Shot In Afghanistan

Anja Niedringhaus was killed instantly, according to a witness


A man dressed as a policeman has shot two foreign journalists in eastern Afghanistan, killing one and wounding the other.
The journalists were reporting for the Associated Press news agency from an isolated town along the country's mountainous border with Pakistan.
Anja Niedringhaus, 48, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer from Germany was killed instantly according to a witness.
Reporter Kathy Gannon, 60, was shot twice and is being treated in hospital where she is in a stable condition.



Reporter Kathy Gannon survived the shooting and is in a stable condition

The shooting took place on the eve of Afghanistan's presidential election, which Taliban insurgents have vowed to disrupt with bombings and assassinations.
The pair were in their own car in a convoy of election workers driving through Khost. The convoy was protected by the Afghan National Army and Afghan police.
As they were sitting in the car waiting for the convoy to move, a police unit commander named Naqibullah walked up to the car, yelled "Allahu Akbar" - God is Great - and opened fire on them in the back seat with an AK-47.
He then surrendered to the other police and was arrested.
Ms Niedringhaus began her career at a local newspaper in Germany at the age of 16 then joined the AFP news agency in 1990.
She covered the war in the former Yugoslavia for more than a decade and continued to report on conflict around the world from 2002. She regularly reported on the Olympic Games.
In 2005 she was part of a team of 11 photographers who won the Pulitzer Prize in the breaking news category for her coverage of the war in Iraq.
She was experienced working in Afghanistan and spent months covering the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Her work appeared in newspapers around the world and was exhibited in galleries and museums in Frankfurt, Berlin, London and Canada.
Ms Gannon is a Canadian journalist based in Islamabad who has covered conflict in Afghanistan for 30 years.
AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll said: "Anja was a vibrant, dynamic journalist well-loved for her insightful photographs, her warm heart and joy for life. We are heartbroken at her loss."
Afghan voters have vowed to defy the threat of military attacks and have attended rallies in their thousands, ignoring bomb warnings and attacks across much of the country.
The new president will succeed Hamid Karzai, who has been in power since 2001 when the Taliban fell.