Canadian-born journalist Kathy Gannon wounded in attack in Afghanistan
A Canadian-born journalist working for the Associated Press was wounded Friday while on assignment in Afghanistan. Kathy Gannon, 60, of Timmins, Ont., was shot twice and the news agency said she was in stable condition after undergoing surgery.
By the Canadian Press
A Canadian-born journalist working for the Associated Press was wounded Friday while on assignment in Afghanistan.
Kathy Gannon, 60, of Timmins, Ont., was shot twice and the news agency said she was in stable condition after undergoing surgery and that the surgery was described as successful. Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus, 48, of Germany was killed in the attack in eastern Afghanistan.
The news agency said an Afghan police officer opened fire on the pair while they were sitting in their car in the outskirts of Khost city in Tani district. Gannon and Niedringhaus were in a convoy of election workers delivering ballots under the protection of the Afghan National Army and Afghan police. They were in their own car with a freelancer and a driver waiting for the convoy to move when a unit commander walked up yelled “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) and opened fire on them in the back seat with his AK-47. He then surrendered to the other police and was arrested.
Gannon is based in Islamabad for the news agency and has covered war and unrest in Afghanistan and Pakistan for three decades. In an interview from 2011 posted on the Dept. of Foreign Affairs website, Gannon says she knew very early on in her career that she wanted to travel abroad.
”I knew there weren't many openings available to Canada-based journalists as foreign correspondents, so I sold everything and initially went to Israel,” she said. Gannon said she ”worked in and out of Afghanistan" for about 18 years. ”I first went into Afghanistan when the Soviets were still there, so I went into the country with the Mujahadeen.”
A profile accompanying the interview says Gannon won the International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism award in 2002. She was also the recipient of the Edward R. Murrow fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations during 2003-2004. Gannon published a book in 2006 entitled ‘‘I is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror in Afghanistan.‘‘
— with files from The Associated Press.
This article and photo were originally published by the Canadian Press and reprinted here with its permission.
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Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.