We woke up this morning to hear the terrible news that three of our colleagues were killed on Chaghatai ridge last night, one day after the Northern Alliance thought they had cleared it of all Taliban resistance. It has sent a chill through all the journalists here, as well as the Afghan drivers, interpreters, military commanders and officials we have been working with. Below is an account of what happened, as best we can reconstruct it from the journalists who survived and the Afghan soldiers who were with them:

On Saturday the Northern Alliance took the first line of trenches on Chaghatai ridge after prolonged shelling and US aerial bombardment. The general in command, Moammar Hassan, told us late Saturday night that most of the Taliban had fled, and there was just one hill left to take. Saturday night to Sunday morning there was quite a lot of shelling in the area, mostly outgoing.

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) On Sunday afternoon a group of journalists went up to the Northern Alliance frontline and watched as the NA fired more tank shells and mortars at a second and third line of trenches behind the first. Just as the sun was setting the tank commander, General Bashir, judged that the Taliban had all cleared out and said he was going forward in an armored personnel carrier to examine the trench lines. About half a dozen journalists asked if they could go, Bashir said yes, and they jumped on board a Armored Personnel Carrier with him and about 6 soldiers. As there was not room for them all inside the APC, at least four of them were standing on the outside, holding on to the guns or anything else that would steady them. Bashir told them they were not to get off the APC as there were landmines planted in front of the trenches.

The APC passed the first two trench lines without incident, but as it reached the third, some Taliban emerged from a hidden position to their right. "A group of Taliban popped up on our right — six, eight of them," says Levon Sevunts, a journalist for the Montreal Gazette who survived the encounter. "They opened fire on the APC from the right — rifle fire, AK 47s.

"One of them had an RPG. He fired it and hit the APC but it did not explode.

"The driver made a hard left, looking for a hole [cover] — it was kind of a running firefight." By now it was dark, and the journalists could see tracers streaming through the air in their direction. "There was lots of incoming, the driver was going straight down a steep hill, looking for a hole [cover]. The German [Volker Handloik, a photographer for the German magazine Stern] fell and rolled, there were people falling off the APC at the back. I did not see much as I was on the front, holding on to a cannon.

"As the APC tried to escape the ambush, another group of Taliban opened up on it from a different position. Bashir was on the radio asking for backup. Finally some of his scouts arrived and brought out the survivors. One journalist, Johanne Sutton, was shot multiple times in the leg and chest, and she died before they could get her to the clinic in Dashti Qala, which is about 3 miles away from the frontline. Two other journalists — Volker and Pierre Billaud of RTL Radio — had been left behind. According to an Afghan interpreter who was with them, they were injured and so they could not run to catch up with the APC once they fell off. Their bodies — and one body of an NA soldier who was also killed — were recovered the next morning by NA troops. They had been shot multiple times and their bodies had been stripped of their belongings. According to General Hassan his troops found 13 Taliban bodies when they went to get the journalists' bodies — these Taliban "were Chechen, Punjabi [Pakistani] and Arabs".

The Northern Alliance was shocked at the deaths, even as so many of their regular soldiers are dying as well, but there was also some criticism that journalists were pushing too far forwards. Hashmatulla Moslih, an official with the NA Foreign Ministry in Khoja Bahauddin, about 12 miles from the front line, said "it is a tragedy for everyone, it is a tragedy for us too. But these are not traditional front lines, it is not like the First World War — this is the most dangerous frontline in the world, because it is a hidden frontline. These guys [the non-Afghan Taliban fighters] are there, and they are there to kill."