Deathtrap Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — Bilal Hussein’s career as a photojournalist nearly ended soon after it began. Hussein, who had been working for The Associated Press for about three months, volunteered to stay in his native Fallujah as U.S. forces prepared to assault the city to drive out Sunni religious extremists. It was a decision not taken lightly. Once known as the “city of mosques,” Fallujah had become the...

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi television reporter who was kidnapped in Baghdad last week was freed Monday, his station said. Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a 28-year-old reporter for the Iraqi satellite channel al-Baghdadiyah, was released and appeared to be in good health, according to an editor at the channel who spoke on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. No ransom was paid, the editor said. He...

BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi television reporter was kidnapped on his way to work in central Baghdad, his station said Saturday, while the U.S. military reported that troops had killed six suspected militants in a raid. Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a 28-year-old reporter for the Iraqi satellite channel al-Baghdadiyah, disappeared Friday, according to an editor at the channel. The editor spoke on condition of...

New York, October 29, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Sunday’s murder in Baghdad of Shehab Mohammad al-Hiti, an editor for the fledgling weekly Baghdad al-Youm. Al-Hiti, 27, was last seen leaving his home in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Al-Jamia to go to the paper’s offices around mid-day Sunday, a source at the paper told CPJ. Iraqi security forces found the journalist’s...

Omar Fekeiki, a 28-year-old Iraqi citizen studying journalism at UC Berkeley, was at his campus apartment when he received news that chilled his heart: His friend and Washington Post colleague Salih Saif Aldin had been murdered while on assignment in a Baghdad neighborhood. Just two weeks before, Aldin, 32, had called Fekeiki to thank him for being a good mentor. "He died for us to get the story,"...

Reporters Without Borders today called on the Iraqi authorities to urgently establish a programme for protecting journalists after an armed group put a price on the head of public TV station Al-Iraqiya’s correspondent in Diyala, an eastern province where at least six journalists have been murdered. “It is vital that the Iraqi authorities at least try to guarantee the safety of journalists,” the...

BAGHDAD - Five Iraqi journalists were killed in separate attacks Sunday, marking one of the deadliest days for reporters covering war-torn country in nearly a year. Four reporters for Iraqi media organizations were reported shot to death in ambushes near Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Previously reported was the death of Salih Saif Aldin, a correspondent for The Washington Post who apparently was shot...

SALIH SAIF ALDIN was one of those extraordinary Iraqis who have responded to war and upheaval in their homeland by becoming journalists. A native of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town and once one of the centers of the Sunni insurgency, he began documenting events there, first for an Iraqi newspaper and then, beginning in January 2004, for The Washington Post. His commitment to the toughest...

BAGHDAD, Oct. 14 — A journalist for The Washington Post was shot and killed while reporting from a volatile neighborhood in southern Baghdad on Sunday, the newspaper said. The killing, an isolated act that appeared to have been deliberate, was one of at least nine in the capital Sunday. The reporter, Salih Saif Aldin, 32, was shot once in the head, apparently at close range, said the newspaper’s...

NEW YORK: Supporters of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held without charge by U.S. officials in Iraq for 18 months, marked the year-and-a-half anniversary Friday by presenting an online petition with 1,500 signatures to several top federal officials, organizers said. In a letter faxed Friday to the White House, U.S. State Department, the Speaker of the House of...