In a lawless land, hazards mount for reporters

The Afghan doctors all knew the two Western photographers.

For the past four days, they had visited the Kabul hospital regularly, walking the hallways, visiting patients in the wards. The atmosphere was congenial.

Until yesterday.

A doctor received a fax from an Afghan official that journalists could only enter the hospital with an approval letter. The photographers asked to stay for a few more minutes. The doctor pulled out a pistol, cocked it, and held it - with shaking hands - to their heads.

"It's getting more and more crazy," says Time magazine's Anthony Suau, a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the photographers at the hospital. "Everywhere in Afghanistan is dangerous."

With eight journalists killed - and one kidnapped on Tuesday - Afghanistan is now the deadliest place in the world to practice this profession, according to New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. No US troops have been reported killed in combat, though the CIA confirmed yesterday that one of its officers was killed in Mazar-e Sharif this week.

The risks are rising now, in part, because the battle lines are vague. Anti-Taliban forces control all but one of the major cities, but the countryside is lawless. Bandits, scattered Taliban and Al Qaeda militiamen, and Northern Alliance forces roam the mountains and highways outside the urban areas. Journalists carrying cash, cameras, and other expensive equipment are tempting targets.

Most journalists feel a professional competitive pressure to test the limits of safety to get a story. They are aware of the risks. But covering one of the most important stories in a decade means, if inadvertently, sometimes crossing the line between observer and combatant.

"It's more dangerous here for foreign journalists than in Lebanon or Kurdistan, because the anarchy is worse, and there's more pressure on journalists to get the story than almost any crisis since World War II," says Patrick Cockburn, a veteran correspondent for The Independent newspaper in London.

There are also indications that the foreign media are being specifically targeted.

Sitting atop a hill overlooking Kabul, the Hotel Intercontinental offers an excellent vantage point, and should be the perfect haven for journalists. Most of the live television shots are taken from its cable-strewn roof, and balconies are choked with satellite phones transmitting the latest news of America's war on terrorism.

But according to security men of the Northern Alliance, this hotel also may be a target. A rumor spread through the hotel - now full with foreign reporters - that an Afghan translator had tried to enter with explosives strapped to his body.

Though probably not true, the result is that all taxis and journalists' vehicles are now being kept at the bottom of the long drive, requiring a 250-yard walk entering or departing the hotel. Translators - who are now required to produce two different documents to reach the hotel - are frisked at the door.

"I'm not worried about you," a uniformed security guard tells this reporter at the hotel door. "I don't trust him," he says, as he pats down the translator for weapons.

The rising risks are prompting many news organizations to reevaluate their priorities. The BBC, several major US television networks, and wire agencies pulled their correspondents out of northern Afghanistan after the death of a Swedish journalist Tuesday night.

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