Reibers was killed by a Reuters journalist covering the clash between Afghan forces

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Danish journalist Siddiqui was killed on Friday as he was covering a clash between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters near a Pakistani border crossing, an Afghan commander said.

Afghan special forces were fighting Spin Boldak to retake the main market center when Siddiqui and a senior Afghan official were killed in a Taliban crossfire, the official told Reuters.

Siddiqui had been involved as a journalist since the beginning of the week with special forces in Afghanistan in the southern province of Kandahar and was reporting on fighting between Afghan commandos and Taliban fighters.

“We are seeking more urgent information from working with regional authorities,” Reuters President Michael Friedenberg and editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni said in a statement.

“She was a great Danish journalist, a responsible husband and father and a beloved colleague. Our thoughts are with her family at this sad time.”

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement via Twitter that he was deeply saddened by the “shocking reports” of Siddiqui’s death and offered his condolences to his family.

Siddiqui told Reuters he was shot in the arm on Friday while reporting the clash. They were treated and the Taliban later withdrew the fighters from the Spin Boldak fighting.

He was talking to Siddiqui traders when the Taliban attacked him again, the Afghan commander said.

Reuters was unable to independently verify details of the renewed fighting described by the Afghan military official, which the Afghan Ministry of Defense has asked not to identify before making the statement.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Taliban were unaware that there was a journalist from the site who explained that it was a “tough battle” and that it was not clear how Siddiqui was killed.

PRIZE PHOTO

Siddiqui was a member of the Reuters photography team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Documentary Photography for documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis, a series described by the trial committee as “the world suffered by refugees fleeing Myanmar”.

A Reuters photographer since 2010, Siddiqui’s work has included wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Rohingya refugee crisis, protests in Hong Kong and earthquakes in Nepal. In recent months, photographs of the Indian coronavirus pandemic have been published around the world.

[Slideshow – ‘I shoot for the common man’: Danish Siddiqui’s finest work https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/i-shoot-for-the-common-man-danish-siddiq-idUSRTXEG1OW]

Taliban fighters took the border area on Wednesday, the second largest border crossing in Pakistan and one of the most important goals they have achieved in rapid progress across the country when U.S. forces came out after 20 years of conflict.

Twenty-three journalists were killed in Afghanistan between 2018 and 2021, according to a report released by the United Nations this year.

Ten journalists were killed on 30 April 2018, including nine journalists and photographers killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul, and a journalist working for the BBC’s Afghanistan language service who was shot dead in the eastern city of Khost.

That day was the deadliest for the country’s media since the 2001 US-led campaign expelled the Taliban.

On November 19, 2001, Reuters journalist Harry Burton of Australia and Afghanistan-born Azizullah Haidari were also killed by gunmen, who stopped their convoys on their way from the Pakistani border to Kabul. They were traveling to Kabul to cover up the fall of the Taliban regime.