BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A reporter who worked for a pro-Sunni Iraqi television station was gunned down in Baghdad, making him at least the fourth media worker killed in Iraq this month, Iraqi officials and the station said Thursday.
Saud Muzahim al-Hadithi was found dead - shot repeatedly in the head - in Baghdad's notorious Dora neighborhood last week, said Iraqi army Capt. Ali Yaeen. News of his death came three days after the bodies of two other television station employees were found on a highway southeast of Baghdad.
Bodies routinely turn up in Dora, victims of what Sunni Arabs say are targeted reprisal assassinations by Shiite death squads. Many Shiites have fled Dora for fear of attack by Sunni extremists.
Al-Hadithi reported for al-Baghdadiya satellite channel for about seven months, but left the station about a month ago to join another station, said Mohammed Fityan, al-Baghdadiya's director in Baghdad. He declined to name the station and said he did not know exactly when al-Hadithi was found dead.
Al-Baghdadiya's reports are often critical of the Iraqi government and the U.S. military's presence in Iraq. The station is sympathetic to the country's Sunni Arab minority which forms the backbone of Iraq's insurgency. Iraq's Shiite-owned stations and newspapers are equally critical of Sunnis.
The international media group Reporters Without Borders said five journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since May 1, making the month "exceptionally murderous for the Iraqi news media." The Paris-based group said the five included freelance journalist Abdul-Magid al-Mohammedawi, whose body was found May 5 in his home. Iraqi authorities could not confirm al-Mohammedawi's death.
"We can no longer find words to express our horror at the tragedies constantly suffered by the press in Iraq," Reporters Without Borders said, urging Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki to investigate the killings.
The bodies of Al-Nahrain TV reporter Laith al-Dulaimi and Muazaz Ahmed Barood, the station's telephone operator, were found on Monday along a main road near Madain, about 12 miles southeast of Baghdad. Witnesses told police their vehicle was intercepted a day earlier by men dressed in police uniforms.
On Sunday, a car bomb exploded near the Baghdad offices of the state-run al-Sabah newspaper, killing an employee who worked at the printing press.
Reporters Without Borders said at least 93 journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. It was unclear if the number included al-Hadithi and al-Mohammedawi.
Another media organization, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, has said at least 70 journalists, not counting al-Hadithi, have been killed since the invasion. The group's figure does not include media assistants. Two-thirds of those killed were Iraqis.
