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**FILE** Afghan President Hamid Karzai (Getty KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — President Hamid Karzai called Thursday for the quick release of three Afghan journalists — two held by the NATO-led coalition and the other by Afghan intelligence officials.
The arrests over the past week were reminiscent of a strategy the U.S. military used in Iraq to detain local journalists as a way to disrupt insurgents' propaganda networks, analysts said.
The coalition said it had information linking the two journalists in its custody to networks that act as a mouthpiece for the Taliban and hinder efforts to win the loyalty of Afghan citizens skeptical of foreign forces and the Afghan government.
But advocates for the journalists said many reporters in Afghanistan have developed close connections to both insurgents and government officials in order to cover all sides of a war.
"It's dangerous to think by analogy that Afghanistan is the same as Iraq, but rounding up journalists seems to be a common thread," said Bob Dietz, Asia program coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. "This kind of activity really discredits the people trying to build a public base."
Since the Iraq war started in 2003, 14 journalists have been arrested and held by the U.S. military, according to the CPJ. None was convicted in an Iraqi court. All were released, many after months of detention.
In recent weeks, NATO has held briefings on the propaganda war and stepped up its own public relations campaign with news releases highlighting the capture of top Taliban leaders and emphasizing civilian casualties caused by insurgent attacks.
U.S. military officials insist, however, that they do not target journalists.
Before this past week, at least two other journalists were believed to have been detained in Afghanistan over the course of the 9-year-old war, according to CPJ.
Maj. Sunset R. Belinsky, a spokesman for operations, intelligence and the special operations force at NATO headquarters in Kabul, confirmed that a joint NATO-Afghan force detained journalists on Monday and Wednesday.