Deathtrap Iraq

Sardasht Osman, a young journalist who was abducted on May 4 in Erbil and was found dead two days later in Mosul, was killed for refusing to cooperate with Ansar Al-Islam, a radical Islamic group linked to Al-Qaeda, not because of his work as a journalist, a Kurdistan government commission of enquiry has said. Appointed by the Kurdistan Regional Government's president, Massoud Barzani, the...

Safa al-Din Abdel Hamid, an Al-Mosuliya television presenter who was shot Wednesday morning in front of his Mosul home by gunmen firing from a speeding car, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Abdel Hamid was the second Iraqi television anchor to be killed in as many days. Riad al-Saray, an anchor for Al-Iraqiya was gunned down in Baghdad on...

Policemen fired at the Baghdad home of the head of the Iraqi Press Agency, Haydar Hassoun Al-Fizaa, on August 27, injuring his wife and other relatives, before searching the premises and damaging furniture, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The attack on Al-Fazaa's home in the east Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Shaab was carried by police officers...

The body of Kamal Qassim Mohamed, the deputy editor of the magazine Al-Mustaqila, was found in Baghdad Tuesday, six days after his abduction by gunmen. He had been shot. His killers have not been identified. “The authorities have a duty to shed light on Kamal Qassim Mohamed’s murder,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “A proper investigation must be carried out...

Security forces, police officers and members of the Asayesh intelligence service harassed a group of journalists on August 11 in Chamchamal, a town located between Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, and even fired at one of them, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The journalists were covering a protest against a water shortage in the town. The...

Monday's bombing of Al Arabiya's Baghdad office brought the death toll of the channel's employees to 15 since the start of the war in Iraq in 2003. Four people were killed and 15 were injured on Monday when a suicide bomber detonated a 120kg bomb in a van outside Al Arabiya's Baghdad office at 9.25am Baghdad time. According to the Iraq-based Journalism Freedom Observatory, a total of 249 media...

The Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has taken credit for Monday's bombing at the Al Arabiya office in Baghdad on a website it often uses to communicate, suggesting the attack was in response to a broadcast about the influence of the extremist group. The programme was called “Creation of Death.” “Wait for more,” the group’s statement said. The capabilities of the group, which is homegrown but is believed...

Four persons were killed and 10 others injured in Baghdad on Monday when a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle by the offices of Al Arabiya, its correspondent in Baghdad and interior ministry officials said. The bomber struck at around 9:30 am (0630 GMT) in front of the station's bureau in the city centre, leaving a massive crater and sending a plume of smoke into the air that could be seen from...

More than 50 journalists gathered in Sulaymaniyah’s Naly Park at 6 p.m. Wednesday to pay tribute to journalist Soran Hama Mama on the second anniversary of his death. The journalists and Mama’s relatives accused the local authorities of showing no interest in shedding any light on his murder. The gathering was addressed by Ahmed Mira, the editor of Lvin (the independent newspaper for which Mama...

Spain's Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the reopening of a probe into the death of a Spanish journalist who was hit by US tank fire in Iraq in 2003, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. A spokeswoman said the Supreme Court had accepted an appeal by the family of cameraman Jose Couso and ordered the lower National Court to reopen the investigation into his death. Couso was one of two...