AP photographer killed, reporter wounded in Afghanistan

World Today

FILE – In this Aug. 27, 2013 file photo Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus, right, and AP journalist Kathy Gannon, are pictured during a visit to the photo agency Keystone in Zurich, Switzerland . Niedringhaus, 48, was killed and Kathy Gannon was wounded Friday, April 4, 2014 when an Afghan policeman opened fire while they were sitting in their car in eastern Afghanistan. Niedringhaus, an internationally acclaimed German photographer, was killed instantly, according to an AP freelancer who witnessed the shooting. Gannon, the reporter, was wounded twice and is receiving medical attention. (AP Photo/Keystone, Walter Bieri, File)

An Afghan police commander opened fire Friday on two Associated Press journalists inside a security forces base in eastern Afghanistan, killing prize-winning photographer Anja Niedringhaus and wounding veteran correspondent Kathy Gannon.

Niedringhaus, 48, who had covered conflict zones from the Balkans in the 1990s to Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan and was part of a team of AP photographers who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, died instantly of her wounds.The president and CEO of the Associated Press, Gary Pruitt, has paid tribute to veteran photographer Anja Niedringhaus, who was killed in Afghanistan on Friday.

Speaking at the AP’s headquarters in New York on Friday, Pruitt called it “a tragic day for the AP” and described the attack on Niedringhaus as ruthless.

AP’s executive editor Kathleen Carroll, meanwhile, called Niedringhaus “one of the great photographers of the world”.

Carroll said Niedringhaus and Gannon were the two journalists in the world who have spent more time than any others covering Afghanistan.

“So it is with bitter irony that we learn they were attacked there today,” she added.

Gannon, who for many years was the AP’s Afghanistan bureau chief and currently is a special correspondent for the region, was shot three times in the wrists and shoulder.

After surgery, she was in stable condition and spoke to medical personnel before being flown to Kabul.

Story compiled with information from The Associated Press. 

CCTV’s Sean Callebs is reporting from Afghanistan leading up to elections.