Two German journalists killed in Afghanistan

The two freelance journalists working for Germany's national broadcast outlet were the first foreign reporters killed in Afghanistan since late 2001.

Two German journalists who had pitched a tent on the side of a road outside a northern Afghan village were killed by gunmen, on the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

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The two freelance journalists working for Germany's national broadcast outlet were the first foreign reporters killed in Afghanistan since late 2001, when eight journalists died.

A NATO soldier, meanwhile, was killed by militants who exploded a roadside bomb and fired on a military patrol in southern Afghanistan. A suicide car bomber targeted a US patrol in eastern Afghanistan but caused no casualties.

The slain journalists worked for Deutsch Welle, Germany's state-owned broadcast outlet, which produces news for radio, television and the Internet. The freelancers were not based in Afghanistan.

The Germans - a man and a woman whose identities were not released - were travelling in a Toyota four-wheel drive vehicle through the northern province of Baghlan, about 150 kilometres northwest of Kabul, and had stopped outside a small village, where they set up a tent to spend the night, said Mohammad Azim Hashami, the provincial police chief.

The killings came on the fifth anniversary of the October 7, 2001, invasion by US-led troops to oust the Taliban for hosting Osama bin Laden. Western forces and Afghanistan's Northern Alliance quickly routed the Islamic regime.