A Swedish radio journalist has been shot to death while he was talking to a translator on a street in Kabul.
Nils Horner, 51, who also had British citizenship, had worked for Swedish Radio SR since 2001 as a foreign correspondent mostly in Asia and the Middle East, including Afghanistan and Baghdad.
He had reported from Afghanistan in 2001 when the Taliban were forced from power, during the US's entry into Baghdad in 2003, from Thailand following the tsunami in 2004, and from Japan after the tsunami and ensuing Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011.
Police said they were investigating whether it was an insurgent attack targeting a foreigner or whether the motive was personal.
A Taliban spokesman denied the group was responsible for the attack, which came two months after the Islamic militant movement staged a suicide bombing and shooting assault against a Lebanese restaurant that killed 13 foreigners and eight Afghans in the same area.
A guard at a restaurant across the street from where the attack happened said two young men approached the journalist as he was talking to his translator at about 11am on the side of the road. The area is home to several embassies.
The guard, Mohammad Zubair, said one of the men pulled out a pistol and shot Horner in the head, causing him to collapse in a pool of blood. He said there was a single shot and the bullet then hit a nearby Mercedes Benz, which had a bullet hole.
The witness said he and other guards called to the police at a nearby checkpoint and they cordoned off the area.
At least 29 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan since 1992, most of them after the 2001 US-led ouster of the Taliban, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Sayed Gul Agha Hashimi, the head of the Kabul Criminal Investigation Department, said police were questioning the journalist's driver and translator as part of the investigation.
He said the journalist died while being treated at the hospital.
Swedish Radio director-general Cilla Benkö said: Nils was one of our absolute best and most experienced correspondents and what has happened to him today is terrible. We are now trying to get as many details as we can", she said in a statement.
"We know there are high-risk areas," she said, "Kabul isn't an area Swedish Radio should not cover."
Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt passed on his sympathies at a press conference: "I want to express my deepest condolences to Nils Horner's relatives", he said, "we know Nils Horner as a knowledgeable, enthusiastic and experienced journalist. Many Swedes have listened to his voice, a voice which has now been silenced."
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