Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reuters Photographer Killed While Covering Afghan, Taliban Clash

Reuters journalist Danish Siddiqui was killed on Friday, July 16, 2021, while covering a clash between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters near a border crossing with Pakistan, an Afghan commander said.

Afghan special forces had been fighting to retake the main market area of Spin Boldak when Siddiqui and a senior Afghan officer were killed in what they described as Taliban crossfire, the official told Reuters.

Siddiqui had been embedded as a journalist since earlier this week with Afghan special forces based in the southern province of Kandahar and had been reporting on fighting between Afghan commandos and Taliban fighters.

"We are urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region," Reuters President Michael Friedenberg and Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni said in a statement. "Danish was an outstanding journalist, a devoted husband and father, and a much-loved colleague. Our thoughts are with his family at this terrible time."

Thirty-three journalists were killed in Afghanistan between 2018 and 2021, the United Nations said in a report this year. Ten journalists were killed on April 30, 2018, including nine reporters and photographers who died in a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, and a journalist working for the Afghan language service of the BBC who was shot in the eastern city of Khost.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement on Twitter that he was "deeply saddened with the shocking reports" of Siddiqui's death and extended condolences to his family.

Siddiqui told Reuters he had been wounded in the arm by shrapnel earlier on Friday while reporting on the clash. He was treated and Taliban fighters later retreated from the fighting in Spin Boldak.

Siddiqui had been talking to shopkeepers when the Taliban attacked again, the Afghan commander said. Reuters was unable to independently verify the details of the renewed fighting described by the Afghan military official, who asked not to be identified before Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry made a statement.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Taliban had not been aware there was a journalist reporting from the site of what he described as a "fierce battle" and that it was not clear how Siddiqui had been killed.

WEEKLY FEATURE : PAL READY TO SOAR WITH PANDEMIC