New York Times reporter kidnapped in Afghanistan; 1 British commando and unknown number of civillians dead

Farrell at a 2009 conference

Last week, New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell was kidnapped by Afghan militants.

This morning, word was received that Farrell was freed in a raid by NATO troops.

Farrell was unharmed. However, the NATO International Security Assistance Force raid was unable to rescue Farrell’s translator and fixer. Sultan Munadi was killed in the crossfire of the violent operation. Also reportedly dead: one British commando and an undisclosed number of civillians.

The newspaper opted not to publicize Farrell’s kidnapping just as it opted not to disclose the previous seven-month captivity of Timesman David Rohde, also taken hostage in Afghanistan.

A dual British-Irish national, Farrell has been reporting for the Times since 2007.

Astoundingly, this is not the first time Farrell has been kidnapped. While working as a correspondent for The Times of London in Fallujah during 2004, Farrell was taken hostage by Iraqi militants. In his own words:

I was driving from Amman to Baghdad in an armored car and a lorry full of guys with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades just slewed in front of the car, sprayed us with bullets, dragged us out and took us off to a house somewhere near Fallujah, and after a little bit of violence they just bombarded us with questions for about 10 hours before finally accepting we were journalists and letting us go.

Unfortunately, this hostage situation lasted considerably longer than 10 hours. The reporter was kidnapped on Saturday while covering a NATO airstrike on the Taliban in Kunduz province which appears to have killed at least 90. While asking questions in an unnamed village where NATO forces had blown up several fuel tankers, Farrell found a crowd gathering in front of him — some locals and some “Pashtuns from the southern province of Kandahar.” While interviewing the locals — apparently angry over the airstrike — Farrell, his fixer and his driver all heard the sounds of Kalashnikovs and were urged to leave by locals. Then:

people started shouting, “The Taliban is coming!” Across the river, the driver said he saw a group of about 10 militants with Kalashnikovs and machine guns running toward them.

Pandemonium broke out, as people in the crowd fled. The driver said he dashed for some tall grass and rice fields, and ran for 20 minutes with the two teenage boys who had sounded the alarm about the approaching fighters.

The driver said he then got a call from Mr. Munadi on his cellphone. Mr. Munadi told the driver that he and Mr. Farrell were being held by the militants, and that if he came back, the militants had promised to release them all.

But the driver said he refused and continued running with the boys until he stopped, exhausted and thirsty. One of the boys threatened to turn the driver over to the Taliban if he did not give him his cellphone and some money. He did.

The driver eventually made his way to a road where a passing taxi picked him up and took him to the police headquarters in Kunduz. He alerted Mr. Farrell’s colleagues in Kabul at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Following release, it appears Farrell’s first phone calls were to his wife and Times foreign editor Susan Chira.

According to Times executive editor Bill Keller:

“We feared that media attention would raise the temperature and increase the risk to the captives [...] we’re overjoyed that Steve is free, but deeply saddened that his freedom came at such a cost. We are doing all we can to learn the details of what happened. Our hearts go out to Sultan’s family.”

Unfortunately, Afghanistan continues to be a dangerous place for journalists to operate and it will likely only get worse. The journalists, of course, can leave — the civillians cannot.