Afghan BBC Journalist Killed

An Afghan journalist working for the BBC was found dead Sunday, a day after gunmen abducted him in the volatile southern province of Helmand, an Afghan media union said.The Afghan Independent Journalists Association said in a statement it had received "very shocking news that (a) BBC reporter was killed in Helmand."An employee with the BBC in Kabul confirmed on condition of anonymity that one of the company's reporters had been killed.The reporter, who was working for BBC Dari and Pashtu services, was kidnapped on Saturday and his body was found near the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, the union said.Friends of the reporter confirmed to AFP that he had been shot.Helmand sees some of the worst violence in an insurgency by the extremist Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.Several journalists have been attacked in Afghanistan this year, but the BBC reporter's death appeared to be the first for 2008.Five Afghan journalists were killed in Afghanistan in 2007, according to the Kabul-based South Asia Media Commission.Among those killed was reporter Ajmal Naqshbandi, who was beheaded by Taliban insurgents in Helmand in April after they captured him with Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo.Mastrogiacomo was freed after Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government released five jailed Taliban members in a deal that was criticised by the United States.Two female journalists -- TV presenter and reporter Shakiba Sanga Amaj and radio journalist Zakia Zaki -- were also killed in 2007, the body said, adding that no motive had been established in either case.Two male journalists were killed in separate incidents in the country's north, it said.(AFP