Times reporter rescued

KABUL (AP) — British commandos freed a New York Times reporter in a raid early Wednesday on a Taliban hide-out in northern Afghanistan. At least five people were killed in the rescue, including the journalist’s Afghan translator and one of the troops, officials said.

Reporter Stephen Farrell was taken hostage Saturday along with his translator 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.

Gunfire rang out from multiple sides during the rescue, and a British service member and Farrell’s Afghan translator, Sultan Munadi, 34, were killed. Farrell was unhurt.

A British defense official said he couldn’t rule out the possibility Munadi was killed by British gunfire. The family buried Munadi’s body late Wednesday without having the body examined to help determine if British bullets or Taliban gunfire killed him.

A Taliban commander in the house where the raid took place, the owner of the house and a woman were also among the dead, said Mohammad Sami Yowar, a spokesman for the Kunduz governor.

British special forces dropped from helicopters early Wednesday onto the house where the two were being kept, and a gunbattle broke out, Yowar said.

Farrell, 46, a dual Irish-British citizen, told the Times that he saw Munadi step forward shouting “Journalist! Journalist!” but he then fell in a volley of bullets.

Munadi was first employed by The New York Times in 2002, according to his colleagues. He left the company a few years later to work for a local radio station.

He was in Afghanistan on vacation from a master’s program in Germany when he agreed to accompany Farrell to Kunduz on a freelance basis. He was married and had two young sons.