Star reporter wounded in Afghan ambush
Military sources say veteran journalist is expected to make a full recovery
By Mitch Potter and Josh Rubin
Toronto Star Staff Reporters
AFP PHOTO/JEWEL SAMAD
The Star's Kathleen Kenna, centre, is helped by husband Hadi Dadashian, left, and a local Afghan man after being wounded in an attack on the road between Kabul and Gardez, in eastern Afghanistan, March 4.
RELATED LINKS
· U.S. helicopter shot down (Mar. 4)
· Star reporter injured (Mar. 4)
· Coalition base attacked (Mar. 3)
· U.S. soldier dies in fighting (Mar. 3)
· Bernard Weil photo gallery
· Kathleen Kenna in Afghanistan
· National Geographic map: Afghanistan
· CIA Afghanistan Factbook
· Star special section
Veteran Toronto Star correspondent Kathleen Kenna received an injury to her right leg today when a hand grenade was thrown at her car as she rode toward the scene of fighting between U.S.-led coalition and Al Qaeda forces in eastern Afghanistan.
Kenna, 47, sustained extensive injuries in the blast. She was rushed to a nearby hospital in Gardez and later airlifted by the U.S. military to a coalition field hospital at Bagram Airbase, near Kabul, where she was pronounced in serious but stable condition.
At the Bagram facility Kenna received a blood transfusion. She was then airlifted to Kanshi-Khanabad airbase in Uzbekistan aboard a U.S. C-130 transport plane.
She was in surgery at a U.S. military hospital at the base at 11:30 p.m. Toronto time. She will be sent on to the U.S. air base at Incirlik, Turkey when aircraft are available and when her condition allows it, a Canadian diplomat in Pakistan explained.
Kenna's husband Hadi Dadashian, Toronto Star photographer Bernard Weil and an Afghan driver escaped injury in the ambush, which occurred on the main road between Kabul and Gardez inside Paktia province, the scene of a continuing air and ground offensive.
"The ambush came out of nowhere," Weil told colleagues by satellite telephone tonight. "I got a glimpse of someone running toward the car with something in his hand and I ducked down under the dashboard.
"In the next moment, it was like a grenade went off inside the vehicle. The windows were gone; there was smoke everywhere. It was horrible."
Weil said it appeared at least two people were involved in the ambush, one on each side of the road. The impact of the apparent grenade attack was greatest along the rear-right passenger's side of the vehicle, where Kenna sat. Weil said that he leapt from the vehicle to take cover, but when he looked back the assailants had vanished.
Kenna was pulled half conscious from the wrecked car, screaming "I've been hit. I've been hit," said Weil, who managed to flag down a minivan carrying a team of journalists with Agence France Presse (AFP).
The group then raced to a German-funded hospital in Gardez where Kenna was stabilized. A short while later, the AFP team flagged down a vehicle carrying U.S. special forces commandos, who helped expedite a helicopter airlift for Kenna and Dadashian to the field hospital at Bagram.
News of Kenna's injury cast a pall over The Star newsroom yesterday, as friends and colleagues stood vigil awaiting updates. At 7:30 p.m., the prognosis was guardedly optimistic, with military sources indicating Kenna was expected to make a full recovery.
"We are all so very relieved that her injuries are not as serious as originally thought. Kathleen has so many close friends in the newsroom - it has been a very tense day for all of us," said Managing Editor Mary Deanne Shears.
"Kathleen is a journalist who has never hesitated to go where important and critical news is breaking; she wanted to be where our Canadian soldiers are fighting.
"But too many journalists have put their lives on the line in this war. There are no safe zones, no rules, everyone is a target. We believe in the importance of telling Canadians what is happening and what our military is engaged in - but it is an assignment filled with danger."
The Star has maintained a constant watch on the war in Afghanistan, but it is Kenna, the newspaper's South Asia correspondent, who has served longest in the field. She was expected to lead her team to western Afghanistan this week for a series of reports on the continuing refugee crisis. But when fighting broke out with renewed intensity on the weekend, Kenna and her editors decided that she should move cautiously toward Gardez.
Weil and the AFP team remain at Gardez tonight, having spent a sleepless night in their vehicles outside a U.S. special forces base. Kenna is expected to undergo further treatment at Bagram before a decision is made whether to airlift her elsewhere for better medical care. Canadian military officials have taken the lead in securing further airlift arrangements should they be necessary.
At Command Central in Tampa, Fla., Canadian military officials passed on their regrets to Kenna's family for the attack.
"On behalf of the Canadian forces we send our regrets," said Maj. Jamie Robertson. "Our thoughts are with Kathleen and her family. We recognize the dangers of this environment and we did what we could to get her to a safe environment.
"We're just hoping for the best for Kathleen. She's such a nice lady."
In Toronto, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression led a chorus of condemnations on the continuing dangers of reporting in Afghanistan.
"We deplore this deliberate attack on Kenna and the other passengers in the vehicle," said CJFE Executive Director Joel Ruimy.
"We expect she will receive the medical care she needs. And we expect all journalists working in Afghanistan will be able to do so in the safest conditions possible."
Kenna launched The Star's Mumbai-based South Asian bureau in September, and shortly afterwards was thrust into the maelstrom of covering the war on terrorism together with husband Dadashian, a freelance photographer and interpreter.
She is a 20-year veteran of the paper, having served as Ontario reporter, Queen's Park reporter, Vancouver bureau chief, deputy national editor and entertainment editor. In her most recent assignment before South Asia, she spent four years as chief of The Star's Washington bureau.
In Washington Kenna covered the scandal-tinged Clinton presidency, including his acrimonious impeachment over his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky; the agony of young Elian Gonzalez, picked up adrift after his mother drowned trying to escape from Cuba; and the roller-coaster U.S. election which brought George W. Bush to power.
She is also the author of A People Apart, a 1995 book about Canada's old-order Mennonites. |
