Reuters photographer killed as Afghan forces fight Taliban

ISLAMABAD — Afghan government forces battled Friday to retake a border crossing with Pakistan from Taliban insurgents, and the Reuters news agency said 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 spokesperson 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 editor-in-chief 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 per cent complete.

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

In an interview with The Associated Press, U.S. peace envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad expressed surprise at the Taliban’s rapid sweep through swaths of Afghanistan, and said that a long-term “comprehensive” ceasefire may have to wait for the two sides to reach a political deal.

Still, he said he will press for a reduction in violence on the ground.

“I did expect some increased Taliban hold on territories that they were surrounding but had not yet captured, but the speed with which and the amount of territory that they have acquired is unexpected,” Khalilzad said, speaking to the AP on the sidelines of an international conference Friday in neighbouring Uzbekistan. The gathering focused on the situation in Afghanistan.

“But I believe that there is no military solution despite the progress that the Taliban have made,” Khalilzad added.

“For the war to end there has to be a political agreement. The United States will not recognize a government imposed by force.”