NY Times: Reporter freed as situation worsened

A New York Times reporter taken hostage in Afghanistan and rescued by British commandos Wednesday told his editors that the situation in the Taliban hide-out where he was held had been growing more ominous.

Stephen Farrell and his translator were taken hostage Saturday in the northern province of Kunduz when they went to cover a German-ordered airstrike of two hijacked fuel tankers. The bombing, carried out by U.S. jets, caused a number of civilian casualties.

British commandos carried out a raid to free him early Wednesday; the translator and a British commando were killed.

The Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said he had understood from the military that they did not intend to conduct a raid unless the situation turned "particularly menacing, and they had actionable intelligence and a high probability of success."

Keller said he doesn't know what triggered the decision to carry out the raid, but that Farrell told him the situation had been growing worse.

"It's entirely possible that the Allied forces picked up on a plan either to move the hostages or to do something with them," Keller said Wednesday.

The translator, Sultan Munadi, was killed in the firefight, said a spokesman for the Kunduz governor. A British defense official said he couldn't rule out the possibility Munadi, 34, was killed by British gunfire.

Keller said The Times was grateful Farrell was alive, but saddened by the deaths of Munadi and the commando. He said he would not second-guess the military's decision to take action.

"I don't know enough about what intelligence they had," he said.

Another Times reporter and an Afghan colleague were kidnapped in November near Kabul and later taken to Pakistan. The men, David Rohde and Tahir Ludin, escaped seven months later.

Keller said The Times had done a review of security protocols after the Rohde kidnapping, but that another review would be undertaken.

Covering Afghanistan carries risks for journalists, but it's a story that needs to be told, said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"This is huge story of tremendous international significance and the media has an obligation to the best of its ability to cover it," he said. "The question becomes, how do you do that safely?"

He said many of the reporters working in the area are experienced, having spent time in Iraq. He said they are constantly assessing the risks and weighing what kind of acceptable chances they can take in their efforts to cover stories.

"The reporters on the ground are in the best position in most circumstances to make those judgments," he said.

Keller said Times reporters are allowed a great deal of leeway because they are the best ones to judge the level of risk. He said The Times talks to its reporters regularly about the ground rules and about which areas of the country may be particularly dangerous.