Iranian journalist dies in Afghanistan

New York, September 22, 2011–Farhad Taqaddosi, a cameraman for Iran’s Press TV, died in a Kabul hospital on Tuesday of injuries he sustained in the Taliban’s September 13 attack on prominent international buildings in Kabul, the station reported.

“We join Farhad Taqaddosi’s family and colleagues in mourning his death,” said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. “The conflict in Afghanistan presents a great danger to all who cover it, and international journalists constitute a high number of those at risk.”

In a well-orchestrated series of attacks, Taliban militants struck at the U.S. embassy, NATO headquarters, and other buildings in central Kabul, news reports said. Seven civilians were killed, and 15 were wounded, news reports said. Taqaddosi was working at Press TV offices in central Kabul when the attack took place, the station reported.

Taqaddosi is the 21st journalist to be killed in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion, CPJ research shows. Fourteen, or two-thirds, of the fatalities were international journalists. Afghanistan is one of the few places in the world where this proportion exists, CPJ research shows. In most countries, even during times of war, local journalists are killed in far greater numbers than foreign journalists.