Iraq

At least three members of Iraq's security forces were killed Saturday in an attack on the funeral procession of an Al Arabiya journalist killed earlier in the week, the Arab television station and police said, according to Reuters. NOT SPARING EVEN THE DEAD: A grab taken from Al Arabiya television footage shows people carry the body of Atwar Bahjat, an Al Arabiya correspondent, during her funeral...

One wonders what it will take for newspapers in this country to endorse the notion of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq starting, oh, how about now? I’ll take speedy (the Murtha plan) or slow and steady (the realistic idea). But some-time-in-our-lifetime (the default position) doesn’t quite cut it, especially after the events of the past two days in Iraq. Readers will likely not respond to a call for...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has warned that the escalating violence in Iraq, which has seen a number of journalists killed in recent days, is forcing all media – both local and international – into hiding, with increasing lawlessness and violence not being properly covered. EASY PREYS: Former French hostage in Iraq Florence Aubenas (C) chats with a colleagues from Liberation...

Three journalists of Al-Arabiya television, including a well-known woman correspondent, were kidnapped and killed while covering sectarian violence in Samarra, police and the Arabic-language channel said. The bodies of Atwar Bahjat, 30, and her cameraman and soundman were found early Thursday near the city 60 miles north of Baghdad, local law enforcement officials said. MURDERED: Bodies of Al...

21 February 2006 -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the Pentagon is reviewing the U.S. military's practice of paying to plant stories in the Iraqi news media. In a speech last week, Rumsfeld said the controversial practice had been stopped. But he revised his words in a Pentagon news conference today, saying the practice is under review. The aim of the program, which has been...

NEW YORK: With five days to go until the latest deadline set by the kidnappers of abducted journalist Jill Carroll for their demands to be met, her employers at the Christian Science Monitor are downplaying the Feb. 26 date as the final chance to win her release. "We feel there can be a danger in getting fixated on a deadline of putting pressure on Jill's captors to hold to a deadline when in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday he was mistaken when he stated last week that the U.S. military had stopped paying Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-American articles. Rumsfeld had said in a television interview on Friday that the U.S. military had ceased paying to place positive stories in Iraqi media after criticism in the U.S. Congress and press. Rumsfeld...

Jill Carroll, a 28-year-old freelance reporter on assignment for the Christian Science Monitor, was abducted on January 7, 2006 in Baghdad. Carroll received her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1999. In 2002, Carroll moved to Jordan — six months before the Iraq war started in March 2003 — "to learn as much about the region as possible before the...

LONDON (Reuters) - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq is among four main groups leading an insurgency against U.S.-led and Iraqi forces that owes its resilience partly to canny exploitation of the Internet, a report said on Wednesday. The International Crisis Group, a non-profit organization that monitors conflicts, analyzed insurgent publications and Internet postings to argue that the rebel...

BOSTON (Reuters) - Iraqi state television has aired video clips put together by the Christian Science Monitor urging the release of its reporter Jill Carroll, less than a week after her captors renewed threats to kill her, the newspaper said on Wednesday. The Boston-based newspaper said the broadcasts on al-Iraqiya television began airing on Tuesday and included interviews with Iraqis who say they...