A week before he was killed during a commando raid that freed his colleague, New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell, from Taliban captors, the Afghan journalist Sultan Munadi wrote a post for the Times’s “At War” blog. His conclusion:
Being a journalist is not enough; it will not solve the problems of Afghanistan. I want to work for the education of the country, because the majority of people are illiterate. That is the main problem facing many Afghans. I am really committed to come back and work for my country.
An article by David Rohde about Munadi—and his role in telling his country’s story, which was much more than “interpreter”—is here. Remembrances from other colleagues are here. Both are well worth a read.
As a very close friend and a former colleague, who worked jointly with Sultan Munadi for more than seven years (over 3 years for ICRC and more than 4 years for New York Times between 1998 - 2006), I would like to see a thorough investigation on Sultan's suspicious killing. There are so many questions that the British government has to answer regarding the raid that the British commandos launched for rescue of their countryman, which caused the death of Sultan Mohammad Mounadi, who left young widow with two children (one 3 years old and another only six months old) with no one to support the family in the war torn Afghanistan.
#1 Posted by Gulbahari, CJR on Mon 28 Sep 2009 at 02:04 AM
Dear all,
We know what is war and how the people die in a war, but the investigations shows that Sultan Munadi was not killed during the war between UK Special Force and Taliban, he was killed when there was no Talib and he was shot under his chin and also we have prove that the house owner who had Stephen Farrel and Sultan Munadi at that night in his house, said that after the escape of taliban Both of them Stephen Farrel and Sultan Munadi left the house and joint the UK special force and went toward the UKSF helicopters the next morning they found the dead body of Sultan Munadi at the place where the helicopters were landed, we should try to understand the realities and facts, I follow the story of Sultan Munadi and I realize that some people are trying to hide the realities and try to change the story of Sultan Munadi in a different way, as a Friend and Family member of Sultan Munadi I thank all the people who are trying to see the facts specially what happened to Sultan Munadi.
Thanks for understanding God will safe all of us from these kind of accidents.
Shukoor
#2 Posted by Shukoor, CJR on Mon 21 Dec 2009 at 05:03 AM