Photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus was killed and her AP colleague Kathy Gannon wounded when an Afghan police officer opened fire inside their car.
AP photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus was killed while covering the 2014 Afghanistan presidential election, when a gunman opened fire at the car she was waiting in at a checkpost, part of an election convoy. Anja Niedringhaus was the only woman on a team of 11 AP photographers that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for coverage of the Iraq War. Also in 2005 she was awarded the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism prize. She captured many images that people recognize worldwide.
The attack occurred at a checkpost on the outskirts of Khost city in Tani district, where the journalists were part of a an independent election commission convoy delivering ballots under the protection of the Afghan National Army and Afghan police. While the two were waiting in the car, an Afghan police unit commander named Naqibullah walked up their car and opened fire shooting both women in the back. After the attack, the officer surrendered, and was taken into custody.
State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf remembered foreign service officer Anne Smedinghoff, who was killed one year ago in Afghanistan, and expressed condolences for the death of AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus Friday in Afghanistan.
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