As the American military steadily withdrew its combat forces from Afghanistan, David and Tom spent the past several years embedding with Afghan forces to see if they were up to the job of defeating the Taliban.
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Two other NPR crew members were following in another vehicle.
The Afghan president says the Taliban do not distinguish between the military, civilians and journalists.
NPR’s David Gilkey and Afghan translator Zabihullah Tamanna were in an Afghan army Humvee traveling between the provincial capital of Helmand province, Lashkar Gah, and Marjah, when their vehicle was struck by an 82mm rocket during a Taliban ambush, Shakil Ahmad Tasal, a spokesman for the Afghan army’s 205th Atal Corps told Reuters. “He was a gifted story teller, who understood the power of imagery to enhancing the power of understanding”, said Secretary of State John Kerry in a statement. He also covered the 2009 Gaza war between Israel and Hamas, the 2010 natural disaster in Haiti, the 2015 Ebola epidemic in Liberia, and conflicts in Rwanda, the Balkans and Somalia.
Veteran correspondent Phillip Reeves, who recruited Tamanna to NPR, called him “a great colleague”.
The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Asia program coordinator Bob Dietz said, in a statement on Sunday, “Even though much of the world’s attention has shifted away, let no one doubt that Afghanistan remains a unsafe place for journalists-local and foreign-working to cover that protracted conflict”.
Of his time in Haiti, Gilkey said that his work was not just about reporting or taking pictures, it was about considering whether those visuals and stories changed people’s minds enough to take action.
We’re sad to report that NPR Photojournalist David Gilkey has been killed in Afghanistan.
America’s National Public Radio (NPR) is mourning the loss of its award-winning photojournalist David Gilkey, who was killed in Afghanistan over the weekend. They were not injured by the Taliban insurgents’ attack.
The veteran news photographer and video editor for National Public Radio killed in Afghanistan got his start in journalism in Colorado.
Zabihullah Tamanna also freelanced as a reporter and photographer for Anadolu Agency. The White House News Photographers Association named Mr Gilkey the Still Photographer of the Year in 2011. He later joined the Detroit Free Press in 1996 and then began working for NPR in 2007.
At least 27 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
His work has been recognised with numerous awards, including the prestigious George Polk Award and a national Emmy.
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“Tell me what has happened to him?” pleaded Fawzia, Tamanna’s 32-year-old wife, as relatives seeking to soothe her anxiety told her Monday he was wounded but alive.
