Disturbing developments

I've had various people say to me that it's only a matter of time until a journalist gets killed in Afghanistan, given the fact that in so many cases they go where the soldiers do, and in many others they're travelling with their "fixer" - completely unprotected.

Well, a photographer has been killed, he just happens to have been a military photographer:

Master Corporal Darrell Jason Priede, a military Imagery Technician serving with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Regional Command (South) Headquarters at Kandahar Airfield, was killed when the helicopter in which he was a passenger went down at approximately 9 p.m. Kandahar time on 30 May, near the town of Kajaki, Helmand Province, about 95 kms northwest of Kandahar City. Master Corporal Priede was a member of the Army News Team from 3 Area Support Group, based at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, New Brunswick.

My condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues in Gagetown, and across the CF.

Veritas.

The circumstances surrounding MCpl Priede's death are disturbing for an additional reason: it appears that the Chinook in which he was travelling was shot down.

Initial reports said Taliban militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter, which can carry as many as 40 passengers and crew.

"Last night a little after 9 p.m. local time a Chinook helicopter went down in Helmand province near the Kajaki area," said NATO spokesperson Maj. John Thomas of the U.S. air force.

Thomas said other troops with ISAF rushed to the scene, but were attacked and had to call for air support. Dozens of Taliban fighters were killed or wounded in the battle that followed, the Afghan Defence Ministry said.

"After the crash, a unit went in to the crash scene and received small arms fire, from an ambush from the enemy," he said. "It was a hostile area where the helicopter went down, and initial indications are that enemy fire may have brought down the helicopter."

MCpl Priede had only been in the country for a month and a half, a short-notice volunteer for a slot with the British where they had specifically requested a Canadian imagery tech.

No details seem to be available about the crash at this point. I'd be interested to know if MCpl Priede was shooting stills or video in the aircraft at the time it went down, and if his equipment and imagery survived the crash.

I'd also be interested to know if the Chinook was part of a flying convoy or not, since often a number of transport helos (Chinooks, Blackhawks, etc) will be accompanied by a number of attack helos (Apaches mostly) riding shotgun. The publicly available information states that the responding patrol came under fire when they arrived in the area, which implies to me that air assets didn't suppress the enemy effectively immediately after the crash. By that, I mean that if you're an Apache crew and you see an RPG pop out and smack one of your Chinooks, you'd normally kick the living crap out of the source of that RPG immediately - long before the responding ground patrol arrived at the crash site. With that context, and not knowing what air assets were in the area at the time, I wonder why the would-be rescuers came under fire?

Disturbing developments, indeed.

Update: Roxanne Priede, about her son:

"When he called us and told us he had actually applied to go over to Afghanistan, he said he wanted to bring home the news of good stuff that was going on over there — the good things Canadians were doing over there."