BBC man killed in suicide bombing

ONE OF the BBC’s reporters in Afghanistan has been killed in an attack in the eastern Khost province, the broadcaster said.

Ahmad Shah, 29, had worked for the BBC’s Afghan service for more than a year and “had already established himself as a highly capable journalist who was a respected and popular member of the team”.

He was killed on the same day a co-ordinated double suicide bombing in the capital, Kabul, killed 25 people, including at least nine other journalists.

BBC World Service Director Jamie Angus called it a “devastating loss” and sent his “sincere condolences to Ahmad Shah’s friends and family and the whole BBC Afghan team”.

Talib Mangal, spokesman for the provincial governor in Khost, said Mr Shah was shot dead, without providing further details.

The suicide bombing attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, was the deadliest to target journalists since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

A few hours later another suicide car bombing in Kandahar killed 11 children.

Agence France-Presse reported that the news agency’s chief photographer in Kabul, Shah Marai, was among those killed in Kabul. AFP said Marai died in the second blast which targeted a group of journalists who had rushed to the scene of the earlier suicide attack in the capital.

Police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai said the first suicide bomber in Kabul was on a motorbike while the second attacker was among the crowd of reporters who rushed to the scene, pretending to be one of the media.

The second attacker then detonated his explosives while still among the reporters.