Marine, U.K. Reporter Dead in Afghan Blast

An explosion outside a village in southern Afghanistan killed a veteran British war correspondent, officials said Sunday. The blast, which also killed a U.S. Marine and an Afghan soldier, marked the British media's first death in the conflict.

With the death of Sunday Mirror journalist Rupert Hamer, a total of 18 reporters have been killed in Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, according to figures kept by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

"Tragically it was a matter of time," former British forces commander Col. Richard Kemp told Sky News television. "Our journalists, the same as other journalists, our British journalists deploying on operations with forces in Afghanistan or Iraq face exactly the same risks as our soldiers face out there."

Hamer, 39, and photographer Philip Coburn, 43, were accompanying a U.S. Marine patrol Saturday when their vehicle was hit by a makeshift bomb near the village of Nawa in Helmand, the Defense Ministry said.

An U.S. Marine was also killed in the blast, the ministry said, as was an Afghan solider. Coburn was seriously wounded in the explosion but remains in stable condition, the military said. Four U.S. Marines were also left badly hurt. No further detail was provided on their condition.

The past year has been particularly deadly for those fighting the war and those covering it. Canadian journalist Michelle Lang died late last year while embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan. An Afghan translator for The New York Times, Sultan Munadi, was killed in September during a rescue operation.

The Sunday Mirror said that Hamer and Coburn had flown to the region on New Year's Eve and were embedded with the American military. Their trip was to have lasted for a month, the paper said.

Both were veterans of reporting from conflict zones. It was Hamer's fifth excursion to Afghanistan, while Coburn had previously reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Rwanda.

"Rupert believed that the only place to report a war was from the front line, and as our defense correspondent he wanted to be embedded with the U.S. Marines at the start of their vital surge into southern Afghanistan," Sunday Mirror Editor Tina Weaver said in a statement.

The Sun's Tom Newton Dunn, who used to serve as the paper's defense correspondent, said he and Hamer often spent time together in the field.

"He was extremely good at getting news, and he really understood the armed forces," Newton Dunn told the BBC. "And was never afraid to go out to places like Afghanistan or Iraq."

Government officials lined up to offer their condolences, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown saying Hamer and Coburn brought "courage, skill and dedication to reporting from the front line," something he said ensured that the world could see and read about what international forces were achieving in Afghanistan.

British defense minister Bob Ainsworth said the pair accompanied him on his most recent trip to Afghanistan and that he was "impressed by their hard work and professionalism.

"My thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the families, friends and colleagues of both men at this extremely distressing time," Ainsworth said.

Hamer is survived by his wife Helen and three young children, his newspaper said.
By Associated Press Writer Raphael G. Satter

[YoureSoWrong23]

America is a multi-ethnic, secular republic. It is based on the philosophers of the Enlightenment era and the effect those thinkers had on the Founding Fathers. Nothing could be further removed from this type of government than the police state or the theocracy, and yet here we read apologies from advocates of both types of evil regime. And Jihadists, who are the shock troops of theocratic police states, are currently waging war on six continents.

Failure to understand this is merely a ploy used by those who practice anti-American agit-prop and wish to distract readers from the global struggle by diverting attention obsessively to this-or-that front in the war, and then harping on the conduct of that battlefront until demoralization sets in.

[mysteriousjz]

A Question: Who is up in arms loaded with firepower, roaming and bombing whose territory, who is on offensive, who is on defensive?

Another Question: Who is slaughtering whose men, women and children and in whose land, who keeps "crying wounded and shooting?"

Yet Another Question: Who is rationalizing his own deeds, who is demonizing the others'/other, which side is achieving more human bloodshed through "civilized violence?"

[curse914]

by YoureSoWrong23 January 10, 2010 3:02 PM EST
There are certain unrepentent Nazis whose common-cause with Jihad in the 1940s has survived until the present day. It's like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, but uglier.

[][][][][]

Dave Emory certainly believes there is a connection.

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/DX

[YoureSoWrong23]

Those who did not serve the Third Reich then will not serve Jihad now.

[drsam8]

How come Al-Qaeda, made of mostly leaders who are in hiding and most of who live in caves, are almost always outsmarting us? We spend billions of dollars, we have these shiny offices and well-polished Generals, we have drones, airpower and smart technology that our enemies don't have, and they still are standing up to us. What does this say about us as a super-power? We cry and mourn about the death of our professional soldiers in a way that Al-Qaeda doesn't. If we prove ourselves incapable of responding to our current challenge, our civilization is indeed in a critical state of ill-health and might ultimately end. Just read Arnold Toynbee?s Rise and Fall of Civilizations. What kind of leaders and people will we turn out to be in the face of our biggest challenge. Some people, in fact so many are already tired of the Afghan war, even though we are far from winning it. Our failure can only embolden our enemies! Dr. Sam

[YoureSoWrong23]

There are certain unrepentent Nazis whose common-cause with Jihad in the 1940s has survived until the present day. It's like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, but uglier.

[wyodutch]

Must have been a missile fired from a UAV. That way.. it's not an act of terrorism. On the other hand, had it been a roadside bomb, mine or explosive vest.. then it would be terrorism.

[Canuck42]

These IEDs which kill many of our brave soldiers are set off by telephones or some other electronic devices. Surely somebody in the Silicon Valley can come up with a scanning device which can set off the explosives before the patrols get to the area, or better still, set them off when the insurgents are building or planting them. This is a challenge to the geniuses out there to become real heroes!

[YoureSoWrong23]

Illegal regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan deserved what they got, and so do their supporters.

[YoureSoWrong23]

And yet you post here?

[fedup12]

Who does?

[robinspp]

Unwanted people in unwanted place are killed. It is natural.