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Afghanistan Photos Deleted?

By Hillary Profita

March 5, 2007 / 12:35 PM EST / CBS News

(AP)

The New York Times' blog The Lede highlights an interesting tidbit from a story out of Afghanistan that generated headlines this weekend. Fleeing and ambush, U.S. Marines "opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said," according to the AP. "Up to 16 people were killed and 34 wounded in the violence." A suicide car bomb had gone off and militants fired on an American convoy, which returned fire.

Following the incident, freelance photographers working for the AP were taking pictures when "a U.S. soldier deleted their photos and video showing a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to death about 100 yards from the suicide bombing." The photographers said the soldier told them that they didn't have permission to take photographs.

A U.S. military spokesman said he did not have any confirmed reports that coalition forces "have been involved in confiscating cameras or deleting images," writes the AP.

The AP "plans to lodge a protest with the American military."