A daring raid by British commandos has resulted in the rescue of a New York Times reporter in northern Afghanistan, though a soldier and an Afghan translator died during the mission.
Reporter Stephen Farrell and his translator, Sultan Munadi, had been held captive in the northern province of Kunduz since the weekend.
Early Wednesday morning, a group of commandos dropped from helicopters onto the house where they were being held and engaged in a fierce gunbattle with their captors.
Farrell, a dual Irish-British citizen, told the Times that he saw his colleague step forward into a volley of bullets during the raid, after yelling "Journalist! Journalist!"
He then heard British voices and yelled "British hostage!" Farrell was ordered to come over to their position, which is when he saw what had happened to Munadi.
It was not immediately clear if Munadi had been killed by insurgent or commando fire.
Britain's defence ministry said "all reports of civilian fatalities are always investigated thoroughly."
Munadi and Farrell had travelled to the area following a NATO air strike on a pair of hijacked fuel tankers last Friday. They had intended to interview villagers about the incident, but were captured at gunpoint and held captive by Taliban insurgents.
The Times reported that the two men had been warned by an old man to leave the area shortly before their capture.
A Taliban commander died in Wednesday's raid, as did the owner of the house and a woman who was inside, said Mohammad Sami Yowar, a spokesperson for the Kunduz governor.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown later confirmed that a British service member died during the raid.
He said the operation took place after "extensive planning and consideration," and he paid tribute to the soldiers who were involved.
"As we all know, and as last night once again demonstrated, our armed forces have the skill and courage to act. They are truly the finest among us, and all of us in Britain pay tribute to them, and to the families and communities who sustain them in their awesome responsibilities," Brown said.
The 46-year-old Farrell has worked for the Times since 2007, covering both the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts for the U.S. paper.
Munadi, only 34 when he was killed, had worked on-and-off for the Times since 2002. He is survived by his wife and their two young sons.
The kidnapping of Farrell and Munadi was kept quiet by media at the request of the Times.
CTV's London Bureau Chief Tom Kennedy said it is common for media outlets to keep these types of situations out of the public spotlight.
"It's very often the case when journalists do get kidnapped in situations like this, very often our editors do not say anything to anybody. It's kept very quiet," he told CTV's Canada AM from London.
"Simply because, there is a fear among the media outlets ... that if these abductions are given a lot of publicity, it kind of raises the temperature and the atmosphere around the whole abduction, it may aggravate the possibility of opening negotiations with the abductors, that kind of thing."
Farrell was previously held hostage with a group of journalists in Iraq five years ago, while working for The Times of London.
After being questioned by militants for about 10 hours, the group was let go, Farrell told CNN in an interview after the incident.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a British military base was hit by a suicide bomb attack on Wednesday. Two Afghan truck drivers were killed in the attack outside Camp Bastion and international troops were seriously wounded, officials said.
With files from The Associated Press and CTV's Canada AM
