Militia force finds journalists' bodies

The bodies of four foreign journalists have been found in eastern Afghanistan after they were ambushed and shot by masked gunmen while travelling between the city of Jalalabad and the capital, Kabul.

A militia force brought the bodies back to Jalalabad, where they were identified by colleagues. Last night the unidentified attackers were reported to be still at large in the area, about 40 miles from Kabul.

The journalists are Harry Barton, an Australian reporter, and Aziz Haidari, an Afghan photographer, both working for Reuters; Julio Fuentes of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo; and Maria Grazia Cutuli, an Italian reporter for the daily Corriere della Sera.

The driver of one of the cars, who escaped and returned to Jalalabad, said he had seen two of them shot at close range and heard further shots as he sped away.

The tragedy illustrates the anarchic state of eastern Afghanistan six days after the retreat of the Taliban. Several cars arrived in Jalalabad yesterday with bullet holes from the same area, close to the border between Northern Alliance-controlled Kabul and the territory of the Jalalabad mujahedin government.

Like hundreds of other journalists in the past few days, the victims drove in a loose convoy of some eight cars along the mountainous road between Jalalabad and Kabul. According to their Afghan drivers and translators, the two leading cars were stopped by a group of about eight men carrying rifles who said there were Taliban on the road ahead.

The party became suspicious when a bus passed from the opposite direction and its passengers reported no trouble on the road. When the cars attempted to turn round, the gunmen dragged out the occupants and began hurling stones and beating them with rifle butts. The attackers spoke the local language of the Pashtun tribesmen. "One of them said, 'You declared that the Taliban were finished, but we are still here'," said one of the drivers, Ashiq Ullah, adding that they abused them and insulted their wives. The drivers were told to recite an Islamic prayer to prove that they were Muslims, and were then allowed back into the cars.

"I saw with my own eyes two of the journalists being shot, one of them was a woman and the other was a man," Mr Ashiq Ullah said. "They were shooting from about 10 yards away, and the journalists fell to the ground."

Despite the absence of the Taliban, the Jalalabad region is far from safe. As many as 1,500 Arab al-Qa'ida fighters are reported to be holed up in mountains south of the city.

But other travellers suggested that the killers might have been motivated more by criminal intentions than by ideology. "They are not Taliban, they are robbers," said Sher Shah, the mujahedin commander who led the search party last night. "They robbed many local people travelling along that road – they took clothes, shoes, watches and money. They just want to put the blame on the Taliban."

Yesterday's deaths bring to seven the number of foreign journalists killed in Afghanistan since the beginning of the bombing campaign on 7 October.