Facts still elusive in Kabul death of Swedish reporter

The biggest break so far in the investigation is video of a suspected gunman and an accomplice running from the scene of the crime. The video was captured by a surveillance camera that was mounted near the street by a Western embassy and not by the Afghan government, Afghan and foreign diplomats said.

Afghan officials now have the video, but have refused to release it. A copy was obtained by the Expressen newspaper of Sweden and posted on its website. The grainy black-and-white video, which Afghan and Western officials said was authentic, shows a pair of men — one in traditional dress, the other in what appears to be a track suit — running down a main street in Kabul’s diplomatic enclave.

The video was taken moments after the shooting, around the time the area had been cordoned off by heavily armed police officers to secure a route for a motorcade carrying senior officials to Fahim’s burial. The suspects ran toward the cordon and, judging from the video, most likely dashed past several police checkpoints as they escaped onto a narrow side street.

Apart from the video, “the facts are thin”, said a European diplomat. “We’re all struggling to explain this.”

Now, some are saying Horner may have been killed as part of some shadowy intelligence war in Afghanistan waged by foreigners.

The European diplomat described the claim that Horner was an intelligence agent as “delusional nonsense”. “We’re all tired of people thinking that the Great Game is being played out here every day,” the diplomat said.