/ 18 October 2001

NO NEWS ON UK REPORTER IN AFGHANISTAN

BRITAIN has no news of the British journalist Yvonne Ridley, who was held by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Monday after a night of air strikes against the regime. ”I feel terribly for the family. They’ve been on a kind of roller-coaster of hope and emotion,” he said, shortly before leaving for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg. The Taliban had said before Sunday’s strikes that it would release Ridley, who was detained late last month for entering the country illegally, to British authorities on Monday. A Foreign Office representative said Britain held the Taliban responsible for her safety. The journalist’s father, Allan Ridley, expressed fears for her safety. ”This is the news we have been dreading,” he said on Sunday, shortly after US-led forces, including British missile-firing submarines, began striking Afghanistan. Ridley (43) was arrested on September 28 while trying to report on conditions in Afghanistan following the crisis over US demands to turn over prime terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden. – Sapa-AFP