LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- The body of Afghan journalist Noor Ahmed Noori was found burned and mutilated in a plastic bag in Helmand province, officials said.
Noori's body was found in a car salesman's yard in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah Thursday evening, the British newspaper the Guardian reported.
"When we found the body around 7 p.m. yesterday we thought there was a bomb inside the bag. We asked our engineers to check, but when they opened the bag it was the body of the journalist," said Abdul Ahad Choopan, spokesman for the provincial police chief.
Noori worked for Radio Busd as well as the New York Times until last year.
Although the region has been plagued by increasing violence in recent years, the last murder of a journalist was five years ago.
In 2008, BBC employee Abdul Samad Rohani was kidnapped and fatally shot.
Abdul Hadi Hamdard, another Afghan journalist, was killed by a roadside bomb in 2012, but it was unclear if he was the target of that attack.
