Siddiqui killed after being left behind in retreat: Afghan Gen
LONDON: As the Taliban’s campaign to reconquer Afghanistan was gathering pace in June, hundreds of people were dying in the fighting, and tens of thousands were fleeing. Danish Siddiqui, a 38-year-old star photojournalist for Reuters based in New Delhi, decided he wanted to help cover the story, telling a boss: “If we don’t go, who will?” On Sunday, July 11, Siddiqui arrived at a base of the Afghan Special Forces in the southern city of Kandahar.
There he embedded with a unit of several hundred elite commandos tasked with flushing out Taliban fighters who in the previous few weeks had been steadily capturing territory.
On Tuesday, July 13, Siddiqui joined a successful mission to rescue a policeman who was surrounded by insurgents. His convoy was returning when it came under fire from rocketpropelled grenades.
The Humvee he was travelling in was hit by one of the RPGS. Three other vehicles were destroyed. Siddiqui captured on video the flash and jolt as a grenade struck the side of his vehicle and the commandos up front drove through the barrage.
Family and colleagues were devastated to learn of Siddiqui’s death when grim images of his body began circulating on social media. While some details about his death remain unclear, enough information has emerged to give an outline of events.
First reports indicated Siddiqui was killed in crossfire while trying to take photographs in the bazaar at Spin Boldak, a hotly contested Afghan border crossing with Pakistan. But an examination of Siddiqui’s communications with Reuters and accounts from an Afghan Special Forces commander show that Siddiqui was first injured by shrapnel from a rocket.
He was evacuated to a local mosque for treatment. And he was killed, according to the top Afghan officer, after being abandoned with two soldiers in the confusion of a retreat.
Major-general Haibatullah Alizai, who was the commander of Afghanistan’s Special Operations Corps when it hosted Siddiqui in Kandahar, told Reuters it was evident now that, in fierce fighting, his soldiers withdrew from Spin Boldak and left behind Siddiqui and two commandos accompanying him, mistakenly thinking they had joined the retreating convoy. His account was corroborated by four soldiers who say they witnessed the attack.
“They were left there,” Alizai said.
Other circumstances surrounding Siddiqui’s death are still not clear. Afghan security officials and Indian government officials have told Reuters that, based on photos, intelligence and an examination of Siddiqui’s body, his body was mutilated while in Taliban custody after his death. The Taliban denies this.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said Siddiqui’s injuries occurred prior to the discovery of the body by Taliban fighters.