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Posted on 11/19/2001 5:56:16 PM PST by Ranger

FOUR journalists were forced out of their cars at gunpoint yesterday and shot dead by Taliban diehards in what anti-Taliban officials said marked the start of the ousted regime's threatened guerrilla campaign.

They were stopped by guerrillas on the main road east of Kabul, forced down to a river bank and shot in the back. At least one was first hit on the head with a rock.

The four were Julio Fuentes, 43, of Spain's El Mundo newspaper; Maria Grazia Cutuli, 39, of Italy's Corriere della Sera; and Harry Burton, an Australian television cameraman, and Azizullah Haidari, an Afghan-born photographer, both of whom worked for the Reuters news agency.

Other vehicles came under fire later in the day as the Taliban apparently tried to cut the road from the eastern city of Jalalabad to the capital.

Taliban forces have been thrown into disarray by seven weeks of American bombing and 10 days of ground defeats by opposition troops. But they have pledged to continue their fight against the Northern Alliance, America and the modern age.

The murders underlined the risks that British soldiers could face if sent in. At least 6,000 are on standby.

The journalists were in the first two cars of an eight-vehicle convoy travelling between Jalalabad and Kabul when they were stopped near the town of Puli Estikam.

At least six armed men wearing black turbans and with their faces swathed in cloth ordered them to get out of the cars. They refused and were forced out.

Ashaq Ullah, 25, who was driving one of the cars, said: "They forced the journalists down to the river.

"The journalists were pleading. They were begging for mercy, but I saw the men fire about three rounds into the backs of each person. They fell face-first on to the ground."

Tory Ali, the driver of the second car, said: "They dragged my passengers towards the river. The journalists were pleading, even grabbing at their beards."

He said that one of the killers picked up a large stone and hit one of the men several times on the head. "After that, they were shot in the back."

The gunmen then stole satellite phones, cameras and the journalists' belongings. After the killings, one of them approached a taxi driver and asked: "Do you know your Islam?"

When the driver quoted the Muslim declaration of faith, another killer said: "You people say that the Taliban have been removed from power. No. We are here until we take our revenge."

The rest of the convoy was allowed to return towards Jalalabad.

The murders are the second such attack on foreign correspondents in Afghanistan. Two weeks ago, two French reporters and a German photographer were killed near Mazar-i-Sharif when Arab fighters jumped from a trench and opened fire.

Miss Cutuli, from Milan, had flown to Pakistan on September 11 and entered Afghanistan three days ago. She had spoken of giving up journalism to work with refugees. President Ciampi of Italy expressed "profound sadness" at her death.

Mr Fuentes was one of Spain's leading foreign correspondents. On Monday he and Miss Cutuli wrote about finding capsules of the deadly sarin nerve gas at an abandoned al-Qa'eda base.

"We cannot work out what is inside," Miss Cutoli wrote. "Julio Fuentes cuts into one side and one by one removes the white glass phials, which are delicate, like doses of insulin, pinched at the top, and isolated from each other in cardboard compartments. We count 20 of them.

"The label reveals the contents, sarin gas, written in Russian, and beneath is the indication of the antidote needed: atropin, the only substance able to contrast the lethal effects."

Eduard Sanjuan, a correspondent for Spanish regional television TV3 who was farther back in the convoy, said Mr Fuentes had decided to make the trip only at the last moment after talking it over with other journalists.

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