Afghanistan: Roadside bomb kills 3 charity workers

Sun Jan 10, 2010, 9:24 am ET

KABUL –

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says a roadside bomb has killed three charity workers and wounded two others.

The ministry says Sunday's blast struck a vehicle carrying the charity workers to their office in Tarin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan province in south-central Afghanistan.

The ministry gave no further details.

It was the latest in a series of attacks to strike civilians in the violence-prone Uruzgan province, a longtime Taliban stronghold.

On Saturday one blast hit a convoy carrying a provincial council member from Wardak province, killing a bodyguard and wounding five others. Another explosion killed one policeman and wounded two in Kandahar.

Three NATO service members have died since Friday.

British newspaper journalist killed in Afghanistan

By Christina Fincher Christina Fincher –

Sunday, January 10, 2010

LONDON (Reuters) –

A journalist for Britain's Sunday Mirror newspaper has been killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Afghanistan, the Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

Defense correspondent Rupert Hamer was accompanying a U.S. Marine patrol to the northwest of Nawa in Helmand province when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device, the ministry said.

A U.S. Marine was also killed in the explosion. Sunday Mirror photographer Philip Coburn was wounded and is in a stable but serious condition, it said.

Hamer was the first British journalist to be killed in Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces began their offensive against the Taliban in October 2001.

He is the second western journalist to die there in as many weeks, highlighting the perils facing reporters embedded with NATO troops. Canadian journalist Michelle Lang was killed on December 30, also by a bomb which struck her armored vehicle.

Hamer was an experienced war reporter who had covered conflicts in Iraq, the Middle East and central Asia. He leaves a wife and three children.

Last year was by far the deadliest year of the Afghan war for Western forces. Both the United States and Britain lost more than twice as many troops as in any previous year, the vast majority of them killed by roadside bombs.

NATO forces dealt with over 7,200 improvised explosive devices in 2009, up from 81 in 2001.

Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver played tribute to Hamer, who had worked for the paper for 12 years. "Rupert believed that the only place to report a war was from the front line," she said.

"Affectionately known as Corporal Hamer in the office, he was a gregarious figure, a wonderful friend who was hugely popular with his colleagues."

(Additional reporting by Peter Graff in Kabul; editing by Tim Pearce)