Deathtrap Iraq

Two Iraqi ABC News journalists were killed Thursday in Iraq, ABC News President David Westin has said. Cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, 33, and soundman Saif Laith Yousuf, 26, were returning home from work at the ABC News Baghdad bureau Thursday afternoon when their car was ambushed and they were killed by unknown assailants. Aziz, Yousuf, and another colleague were on their way back home.The three men...

MADRID, Spain – Prosecutors on Friday appealed a judge's decision to charge three U.S. soldiers with homicide in the death of a Spanish journalist in Iraq, a court official said. Prosecutors at the National Court said the troops from the U.S. 3rd Infantry, based in Fort Stewart, Ga., committed no crime when their tank fired a shell at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel in 2003, killing Jose Couso, a...

The police fired warning shots at the scene of a double bombing Tuesday, enforcing an order banning news photographers and TV camera operators from filming the aftermath of deadly bombings, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The Iraqi government said it decided last weekend to keep photographers and camera crews away from blast sites to prevent them from damaging forensic evidence. Press...

NEW YORK, May 14 (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier being tried in absentia in Rome for killing an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq said on Monday that he did nothing wrong and blamed the death on an Italian reporter who was rescued by the agent. Washington has refused to hand over Mario Lozano, from the U.S. National Guard in New York, so he is on trial in absentia for killing Nicola Calipari as the...

BAGHDAD – In a polarized Iraq, radio host Suhad Rabia did everything she could to stop her listeners from figuring out whether she was Shiite or Sunni. When callers used abusive language to speak of ethnic or religious groups other than their own, she promptly took them off the air. When they expressed extremist sectarian sentiments, she reminded listeners that the station did not share their...

Baghdad, May 11, (VOI) – Iraqi journalist Jamal al-Atabi said the U.S. forces released his son Furat, a layout designer in the Iraqi newspaper al-Sabah, on Friday after three months in detention. "Iraqi Member of Parliament Mathal al-Alusi had several contacts with the U.S. forces for the release of my son, detained since February 2007, without any charges," Atabi told the independent news agency...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, May 9, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today's murder of an Iraqi journalist, his driver, and two passengers, who were gunned down outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Gunmen riding in an Opel without a license plate intercepted a vehicle carrying Raad al-Mutashar, 43, owner and director of a media company, on a road southwest of Kirkuk at around 2...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists, which is hosting a meeting in Iraq to devise a national safety strategy for journalists and media staff, today condemned the killings of three journalists and their driver, who were reportedly tortured and shot in Northern Iraq. "These killings bring the media death toll to more than 200 and underscore just how urgent it is to confront the...

Photojournalist Dmitry Chebotayev was killed in a bombing Sunday while on assignment in Iraq, according to news reports and his agency, World Picture News. Chebotayev was traveling with U.S. forces in Diyala province when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. Six American soldiers were killed and two were wounded, according to the U.S. military. Russian news organizations...

BAGHDAD — One of Iraq's most beloved broadcasters was wounded in an assassination attempt Sunday, the latest target in a string of attacks against journalists here. Amal Mudarris, 58, a Baghdad radio veteran who began her career in 1962, suffered serious head injuries when she was shot several times outside her Baghdad home Sunday morning. Doctors said later in the day that her condition had...