KABUL, Afghanistan, June 5 (UPI) -- An American journalist for National Public Radio and his Afghan translator were killed Sunday afternoon by the Taliban in an ambush in southern Afghanistan, NPR and Afghan military officials confirmed.
David Gilkey, 50, a photographer and videographer, is the first American non-military journalist killed in the 15-year-long Afghan war. Translator Zabihullah Tamanna was 38.
Gilkey, was part of a four-person NPR team embedded with Afghan Special Forces in Helmand Province. Gilkey's other two American team members were unhurt.
In 2010, staff sergeant James P. Hunter, a journalist with the 101st Airborne Division, was killed by an improvised explosive device, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Gilkey was considered one of the world's best photojournalists, with awards that included a George Polk in 2010, an Emmy in 2007 and various distinctions from the White House News Photographers Association.
Other than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gilkey's career included key assignments like the end of apartheid in South Africa, the earthquake in Haiti, famine in Somalia, Liberia's ebola epidemic and battles between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
In 2010, he said his job was about more than journalism.
"It's not just reporting. It's not just taking pictures," he said. "It's do those visuals, do the stories, do they change somebody's mind enough to take action?"
