BAGHDAD (AFP) - Three more Iraqi journalists have been killed in attacks across Iraq in the last three weeks, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Thursday.As more and more media outlets relocate to neighbouring countries and the Kurdish north "their local correspondents are left without any protection and their killers continue to operate with impunity," it said in a statement.
One of the most recent victims was the journalist Rahim al-Maliki, a well-known poet who hosted cultural programmes on the state-run Iraqiya television network before he was killed in a Baghdad hotel bombing on Monday.
Another veteran reporter, Hamid Abd Sarhan, 57, was ambushed and killed as he drove home Wednesday in the southern Baghdad district of Al-Saidiyah, the organisation said, citing the Journalists Union.
"Gunmen blocked his cars passage and shot him several times, killing him instantly," it said.
The 57-year-old had worked for more than 30 years for the state-owned news agency until Saddam Husseins ouster, when he went to work for the privately-owned news agency Iraqioun.
A third journalist, Aref Ali Falih, a correspondent for Aswat Al-Iraq (Voices of Iraq) was killed in a June 11 car bomb in the town of Khalis, northeast of the capital.
At least 187 journalists and media assistants have been killed since the start of the March 2003 US-led invasion. Two are missing and there has been no news of 14 others since they were kidnapped, according to the media watchdog.
The vast majority have been Iraqis killed by insurgent groups or militias angered by their coverage or ideologically opposed to their employers. Others have been caught in the crossfire between the opposing sides.
