writing
PAYING OUR DEBTS
British Journalism Review
On the evening of March 28, as he was driving home in the early Kabul twilight, my friend and colleague Massoud Hossaini, a Pulitzer prizewinning photographer, was shot at by unknown men with automatic weapons. He was physically unharmed. His black SUV is such a wreck it is difficult to comprehend how he was not killed. The vehicle is now infamous in the Afghan capital as the “enemy’s car”, and though Hossaini had wanted to sell it, no one is buying it now. He was shot at at least three times in what appears to have been a targeted attack. Hossaini would make a great catch for a kidnap/murder gang – he is a Pulitzer winner with the world’s biggest news agency; a vocal supporter of media freedoms and human rights; a critic of the incompetent government and endemic corruption; and a member of a high-profile Shia family.
