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Swedish journalist shot dead in central Kabul

Nils Horner's portrait at Sveriges Radio following news of his death.Photo: The Local

A Swedish journalist was shot and killed in Kabul on Tuesday, Reuters news agency reported. Nils Horner, 52, was gunned down in a neighborhood populated by western NGOs, embassies and journalists. It’s the same area where 21 people, mostly foreigners, were killed when a Lebanese restaurant was attacked in January.

Horner had been waiting outside a Lebanese restaurant with his driver and translator when two men in Western clothes approached and one shot him at point-blank range in the back of the head, said Zubir, a guard at the restaurant who uses only one name. The guard and a nearby shopkeeper said only one shot was fired.

The attack took place barely a minute's walk from the site of another Lebanese restaurant, where Afghan Taliban fighters killed eight Afghans and 13 foreigners in January. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, who are seeking to oust foreign forces and set up an Islamic state, said the group was unaware of the attack but would investigate.

Horner, the South Asia correspondent for the Swedish radio station Sveriges Radio had previously been based in New York and London, according to the station’s Web site. He had only recently arrived in Kabul.

The Local reported:

Sveriges Radio (SR) later confirmed on its website that the man was their South Asia correspondent Nils Horner. SR added later that the 51-year-old Swede was shot in the back of the head while conducting interviews on the street.

"This is one of the worst days in the history of Sveriges Radio," said SR's CEO Cilla Benkö. "Nils was one of our absolute best and most experienced correspondents and what has happened to him today is horrible. We're doing our best to gather all the details."

Date posted: March 11, 2014 Last modified: May 23, 2018 Total views: 0