Kathleen Kenna is a Canadian journalist who was injured in a grenade attack in Afghanistan on March 4, 2002.Man charged in grenade attack: Star’s reporter hurt in 2002 blast in Afghanistan
''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...

'', January 21, 2006 Afghanistan- 2003 Annual report
Reporters without borders, 2/5/2003, ''www.rsf.org''Toronto Star reporter injured in attack
4/3/2002 ''cpj.org''

Adult life and career

Kenna has been involved in journalism since the age of 15, and obtained a degree in Journalism from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Wo ...

aged 21. She began her career at the

in 1981 and worked reporting primarily on Canadian political affairs. In 1997 she was promoted from reporter to editor at the Washington Bureau, and worked there until 2001, marrying in 2000 to Hadi Dadashian. In 2001 Kenna became the Star's South-east Asia Bureau chief. After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

in the U.S., Kenna went to Afghanistan to report on the war. Kenna was injured in an attack in Afghanistan on March 4, 2002. While traveling with her husband Hadi Dadashian,

photographer Bernard Weil, and an Afghan driver on the road from Kubul to

Gardez , settlement_type =City , image_skyline =gardez_paktya.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption =The Bala Hesar fortress in the center of Gardez City , image_flag = , flag_size = , image_sea ...

, a grenade thrown into the car exploded underneath Kenna's seat, seriously injuring her. Following the attack she was taken to a medical facility in Gardez with the help of ''Agence France-Presse'' journalists who were also on the road at the same time. After treatment at the medical compound she airlifted by helicopter to

Bagram air base Bagram Airfield-BAF, also known as Bagram Air Base , is located southeast of Charikar in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. It is under the Afghan Ministry of Defense. Sitting on the site of the ancient Bagram at an elevation of above sea le ...

in Kabul and then transported to a United States air base in Karshi-Khanabad Uzbekistan where two operations were performed, then to Rammstein Air Base in Germany for further treatment and finally back to Canada. On January 16, 2006 Abdul Zahir was charged by a

Guantanamo military commission ThGuantanamo military commissionswere established by President George W. Bush – through a Military Order – on November 13, 2001, to try certain non-citizen terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. To date, there have been a total of e ...

for allegedly playing a role in the attack on Kenna.Summarized transcripts (.pdf)
, from Abdul Zahir's ''

Combatant Status Review Tribunal The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were estab ...

'' pages 1-8

Education

In 2004 Kenna became a visiting scholar at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

during a one year fellowships in Journalism and Canadian studies at the Graduate School of Journalism. She delivered the September 23, 2004 Sproul lecture, entitled: ''"Heroism in the Desert: a Canadian journalist and her American rescuers in Afghanistan."'' After finishing the fellowship at Berkeley, Kenna studied at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different ...

between 2005 and 2008 towards a masters qualification in

rehabilitation counseling Rehabilitation counseling is focused on helping people who have disabilities achieve their personal, career, and independent living goals through a counseling process. Rehabilitation Counselors can be found in private practice, in rehabilitation ...

and became involved in helping people who have suffered severe and traumatic wounds deal psychologically with their injuries. Kenna wrote an op-ed about her feelings about Abdul Zahir's trial on December 27, 2009. She wrote that she and her companions weren't interested in retribution. She wrote that she hopes Abdul Zahir has a truly fair trial. She wrote that she and her companions couldn't identify their attackers. She wrote that she had witnessed an aerial bombardment, in the area, earlier that day, and she speculated that her attackers may not have been prepared to distinguish between the foreigner forces bombarding Afghanistan and foreign journalists reporting on the conflict.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kenna, Kathleen Canadian newspaper journalists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Canadian women journalists Toronto Star people Canadian women non-fiction writers