Stephen Farrell successfully retrieved from Taleban. Stephen Farrell adds to the list of kidnapped foreigners in Afghanistan. The British journalist Stephen Farrell was freed after a pre-dawn raid in Northern Afghanistan by The UK Special Forces.

Since the war began in Afghanistan, at least four (4) Briton personnel have been reported kidnapped in various areas on different occasions. He was working for the New York Times in the northern Afghan area where he was kidnapped and captivated by Taleban on Saturday 5 September while investigating an air strike by NATO on two hijacked tankers in Knuduz city. Reportedly 125 people were killed in that strike who had gathered near the stuck-in tankers in order to grab some free fuel.

He was kept in a large room, accompanied by an Afghan colleague, named Mohammad Sultan Munadi (his Afghan Translator / interpreter) and their driver. A British Commando and the driver were eventually killed in crossfire during the raid. Stephen is the third lucky guy who managed to escape alive from the war-stricken Afghanistan. Sean Langan (Journalist), Annetta Flanigan (Irish UN worker) were the others previously escaped. Overall since 2001, some 70 odd foreigners mostly reporters, have been reported kidnapped and 15 among them have been reported killed.

Stephan Farrell’s nick name has been reported ‘Robohack’ who has got a dual nationality i.e. Irish – British citizenship. He has served The Times as their Middle East correspondent prior his joining The New York Times as their Baghdad correspondent. Besides his job with the press, Stephen is also working on a book on ‘Hamas’ which will be available with the readers soon.

This was second time Stephen had been kidnapped during his mission abroad. Earlier in April 2004 during a military operation in Fallujah (Al Anbar – Iraq), he was kidnapped for the first time and released later.

Here is a photo of Stephen Farrell.

Stephen Farrell