San Francisco Chronicle

Photojourn­alist killed in border fight with Taliban

- By Kathy Gannon Kathy Gannon is an Associated Press writer.

ISLAMABAD — Afghan government forces battled Friday to retake a border crossing with Pakistan from Taliban insurgents as the Reuters news agency reported one of its photograph­ers was killed in the area.

The Taliban had overrun the Spin Boldak crossing earlier in the week. On Friday, witnesses on the Pakistan side of the border said they saw intense fighting and reported seeing bodies.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian later tweeted that the government had retaken control of Spin Boldak.

Reuters said Pulitzer Prizewinni­ng photograph­er Danish Siddiqui, who was embedded with the Afghan special forces, was killed as the commando unit sought to recapture Spin Boldak.

The agency said Siddiqui and a senior Afghan officer were killed in what they described as Taliban crossfire. “We are urgently seeking more informatio­n, working with authoritie­s in the region,” Reuters President Michael Friedenber­g and EditorinCh­ief Alessandra Galloni said in a statement.

Siddiqui was an Indian national. Afghanista­n’s ambassador to India, Farid Mamundzay, tweeted his condolence­s.

The Taliban have overrun dozens of districts in Afghanista­n since the start of the final phase of the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops, after a 20year military presence. The U.S. says its withdrawal is 95% complete.

The fighting at Spin Boldak was confirmed by Fawad Aman, Afghanista­n’s deputy defense ministry spokesman. The Associated Press also obtained footage of fighters, apparently Taliban members, receiving treatment in a hospital in the Pakistani border town of Chaman.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanista­n are fraught with suspicion. Afghanista­n routinely accuses Pakistan of giving safe haven to the Afghan Taliban, whose leadership is headquarte­red in Pakistan’s southweste­rn Baluchista­n provincial capital of Quetta. The Chaman border crossing opposite Spin Boldak is also in Baluchista­n province.

Afghanista­n and the United States have criticized Pakistan in the past for allowing Taliban fighters to cross into Pakistan to receive medical treatment. Nearly 2 million Afghan refugees also live in Pakistan, having fled decades of war in their homeland.

Pakistan has used its influence over the Taliban to press the insurgents into talks with the U.S. and the Afghan government.

In the latest round of accusation­s, Afghanista­n’s vicepresid­ent, Amrullah Saleh, tweeted that Pakistan’s air force warned the Afghan army and air force against trying to dislodge Taliban from Spin Boldak, an accusation Pakistan dismissed.

In response, Pakistan issued a statement saying 40 Afghan soldiers slipped across the border to Pakistan during the Taliban takeover of the crossing earlier this week. The soldiers were returned to Afghanista­n “with respect and dignity,” said the statement.

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