The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981. We promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
CPJ research indicates that the following individuals have been killed in 2007 because of their work as journalists. They either died in the line of duty or were deliberately targeted for assassination because of their reporting or their affiliation with a news organization.
Since 1992, the Committee to Protect Journalists has compiled detailed accounts of every journalist killed on duty worldwide.
For more information please visit www.cpj.org
Ahmed Hadi Naji, Associated Press Television News, January 5, 2007, Baghdad
Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28, a cameraman for Associated Press Television News, was found in a Baghdad morgue with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, six days after he had gone missing.
The journalist left his home in southwest Baghdad's Ashurta Al-Khamsa district for work on the morning of December 30, AP reported. His wife, Sahba'a Mudhar Khalil, reported him missing that evening, the news agency said. The circumstances surrounding his death were unclear, according to AP. A coroner's report could not pinpoint a date of death, a CPJ source said.
The source said Naji had received telephone threats a year previous, prompting him to move his family to a safer location. Naji also worked as a messenger for the news agency.
Naji was the second AP employee killed in less than four weeks. On December 12, Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah, 35, was gunned down by insurgents while filming clashes between Iraqi police and insurgents in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
Falah Khalaf al-Diyali, Al- Sa'a, January 15, 2007, Ramadi
Several gunmen in a car followed Falah Khalaf al-Diyali, a photographer for the Baghdad-based newspaper Al-Sa'a, and then shot him in Ramadi's central neighborhood of Malaab, a journalist in Anbar familiar with the case told CPJ. Al-Diyali died at the scene, the journalist said.
Just before he was killed, al-Diyali photographed damage to the central mosque in Ramadi caused by a U.S. bombardment the previous day, the source said. Witnesses said al-Diyali was being watched while he was taking photographs. The gunmen caught up with al-Diyali after he drove away from the mosque, the source told CPJ.
Al-Sa'a was established immediately after Saddam Hussein's overthrow in 2003. It is a political and social weekly owned by prominent Sunni cleric Ahmad Kubeisi. Al-Diyala also contributed photographs on a freelance basis to the state-run daily Al-Sabah, Badrani said.
Abdulrazak Hashim Ayal al-Khakani, Jumhuriyat Al-Iraq, February 5, 2007, Baghdad
Iraqi police discovered the body of al-Khakani, 45, an editor and news presenter at radio Jumhuriyat al-Iraq, and his cousin, in Baghdad's western neighborhood of Al-Jihad. The bodies had several gunshot wounds, al-Khakani's brother, Majid, told CPJ.
Gunmen abducted the two on February 4.
The family identified the journalist on February 19 in Baghdad's Al-Tib al-Adli morgue. The abductors had taken his identification cards, Majid said.
The kidnappers spoke several times with the family using al-Khakani's cell phone. Majid told CPJ that the kidnappers told him they killed al-Khakani because he was a journalist who was harming Iraq. They identified themselves as belonging to Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a group headed by the now-deceased extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Al-Khakani returned to Iraq in 2003, after spending 21 years as prisoner of war in Iran following his capture in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq war, and began working for radio Jumhuriyat al-Iraq. Al-Khakani presented a parliamentary news show for the radio channel discussing government and politics, Majid told CPJ.
Radio Jumhuriyat al-Iraq is part of the state-run Iraqi Media Network. Insurgents have frequently targeted state-run media because of their ties to the U.S.-supported Iraqi government.
Jamal al-Zubaidi, As-Saffir and Al-Dustour, February 24, 2007, Baghdad
The body of Jamal al-Zubaidi, 56, an economics editor for the Baghdad-based dailies As-Saffir and Al-Dustour, was identified by his family in a Baghdad morgue. Al-Zubaidi's son, Riyah, told CPJ that police found the editor's body with gunshot wounds to the head in Baghdad's southwestern neighborhood of Al-Aamal.
Al-Zubaidi's identity cards and cell phone were taken by the gunmen. He was last seen leaving As-Saffir's offices in the central Karada neighborhood around 1 p.m. on February 24, CPJ previously reported.
Al-Zubaidi had worked for As-Saffir and Al-Dustour for three years. Two journalists for As-Saffir were killed by gunmen in September 2005 in Mosul. Another was kidnapped and held for ransom for nearly three week in March 2006.
Mohan Hussein al-Dhahir, Al-Mashreq, March 4, 2007, Baghdad
Several gunmen in two vehicles attempted to abduct al-Dhahir, 49, managing editor of the Baghdad daily Al-Mashreq, at 8:30 a.m . while he waited outside his home in Baghdad's Al-Jamia neighborhood for the paper's car to pick him up for work, according to sources at the paper. After a struggle, the sources said, the gunmen shot al-Dhahir six times in the back and once in the head.
Al-Mashreq is a privately owned, widely read Baghdad newspaper that published commentary critical of the government, according to local journalists. The paper had received numerous death threats to stop publishing, local journalists said. Al-Dhahir worked nearly four years for the paper.
Yussef Sabri, Biladi, March 7, 2007, Baghdad
Yussef Sabri, 26, a cameraman for the Biladi satellite channel, was among several journalists filming pilgrims traveling southwest from Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, according to sources at the station. Iraqi security forces had set up checkpoints to safeguard the way for the pilgrims. Sabri and other journalists were traveling in a convoy with Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta al-Mussawi, Iraqi spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, who was reviewing the checkpoints.
Sources at the station told CPJ that an explosives-laden car appeared from a side road in Al-Saydiya neighborhood of Baghdad's Al-Rasheed district and fired at the convoy. The car then sped up and hit a pickup truck, the last vehicle in the convoy, and blew up. All those in the pickup, including Sabri, were killed from the blast, the sources said. The U.S. military said 12 Iraqi soldiers were killed, according to The Associated Press.
Al-Qaeda is suspected of carrying out the attack since they control Al-Rasheed district, which has been a hotbed of violence. Sabri had worked for six months at Biladi, an independent channel with a pro-government editorial line established by former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Thaer Ahmad Jaber, Baghdad TV, April 5, 2007, Baghdad
A suicide attacker driving a garbage truck packed with explosives blasted near the main entrance of Baghdad TV's offices on April 5, killing Deputy Director Thaer Ahmad Jaber and injuring 12 employees, four of whom are in critical condition, according to a statement by the Iraqi Islamic Party and CPJ sources.
The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization, reported that the attackers fired at the station's guards, clearing the way for the truck. The front of the building, which houses the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party-owned Baghdad TV and Radio Dar al-Salam, was destroyed along with several station and employee cars, according to news reports. The station's main transmission equipment was damaged briefly interrupting its broadcast.
Jaber often helped CPJ document attacks against journalists in Iraq. CPJ learned of Jaber's death after calling his cell phone and being informed by a family member that he was killed today.
Khamail Khalaf, Radio Free Iraq, April 5, 2007, Baghdad
Radio Free Iraq reporter Khamail Khalaf, who was kidnapped April 3 from Baghdad's Yarmouk district, was found dead in Baghdad's Jamia neighborhood April 5, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and CPJ sources. Police received an anonymous call informing them that there was a body on the street. They came under heavy fire by unidentified assailants when they went to retrieve her body, according to RFE/RL and CPJ sources.
RFE/RL reported that an unidentified caller used Khalaf's cell phone to contact her family, but no demands for ransom were made. Khalaf received prior threats, according to RFE/RL. It is not clear if the threats were directly work-related.
Khalaf had reported on social and cultural life in Iraq for Radio Free Iraq since 2004, according to a statement by RFE/RL. Radio Free Iraq is the Arabic language service of RFE/RL in Iraq and broadcasts from its headquarters in Prague.
Othman al-Mashhadani, Al-Watan, April 6, 2007, Baghdad
The body of al-Mashhadani, 29, was found by Iraqi security forces in Baghdad's northwestern district of Al-Shoula three days after he was abducted.
Al-Mashhadani, a reporter for Saudi Arabia's daily newspaper Al-Watan, was abducted on his way home from work between the northwestern Baghdad districts of Al-Shoula and Al-Ghazaliya, according to CPJ sources. Colleagues told CPJ that Mashhadani was on assignment covering the Baghdad security plan and its effects on the Mahdi Army, led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Mashhadani was shot in the head and chest; his body showed signs of torture and his right-hand fingers were broken, according to CPJ sources and the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization. His abductors called his family hours after his abduction demanding a ransom for his release, but there was no further communication, the organization reported.
The Mahdi Army has a stronghold in Al-Shoula while the predominantly Sunni district of Al-Ghazaliya is under the control of Islamic Army, the largest Sunni insurgent group.
A colleague told CPJ that Al-Mashhadani reported on the activities of Islamic Army and other militias. Al-Mashhadani began work for Al-Watan in October 2006, according to an article published by the paper. He had also worked as a freelance reporter for the prominent pan-Arab weekly magazine Al-Watan al-Arabi since 2005.
Dmitry Chebotayev, freelance, May 6, 2007, Diyala
Chebotayev was the first Russian journalist to be killed in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. A freelance photographer embedded with U.S. forces, Chebotayev was killed along with six American soldiers when a roadside bomb struck a U.S. military vehicle in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.
Chebotayev was on assignment for the Russian edition of Newsweek magazine, reporting on the efforts of U.S. forces to control roads in Diyala province, Leonid Parfyonov, editor of the magazine's Russian edition, told CPJ. Chebotayev, 29, had freelanced for several news agencies, including the German-based European Pressphoto Agency and the independent Moscow daily Kommersant. He had been in Iraq for more than two months.
Raad Mutashar, Al-Raad, May 9, 2007, outside Kirkuk
Gunmen riding in an Opel without a license plate intercepted a vehicle carrying Mutashar, 43, owner and director of a media company, on a road southwest of Kirkuk at around 2 p.m., a company source told CPJ. The source said the gunmen shot at close range Mutashar, driver Imad Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid, and passengers Nibras Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid and Aqil Abdul-Qadir. The Associated Press first reported the attack.
Mutashar's company, Al-Raad, published a weekly newspaper Al-Iraq Ghadan, and a related institute operated a news agency and a media educational center. A CPJ source said Mutashar was a prominent writer, poet, and journalist who started the company four years ago.
The CPJ source said Mutashar's son was kidnapped more than a year ago but released after a ransom was paid. The kidnappers told Mutashar that his journalistic work had prompted the abduction, the source said.
Imad Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid and Nibras Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid were Mutashar's brothers-in-law.
Alaa Uldeen Aziz, ABC News, May 17, 2007, Baghdad
Saif Laith Yousuf, ABC News, May 17, 2007, Baghdad
Gunmen in two cars ambushed and killed cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, 33, and soundman Saif Laith Yousuf, 26, on their way home from the network's Baghdad bureau, ABC News reported.
ABC News said Aziz leaves behind a wife and two daughters, while Yousuf was set to marry his fiancée in the coming weeks.
Nazar Abdulwahid al-Radhi, Aswat al-Iraq and Radio Free Iraq, May 30, 2007, Al-Amarah
Nazar Abdulwahid al-Radhi, 38, a correspondent for the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq and Radio Free Iraq, was gunned down in the southern city of Al-Amarah in the Maysan province. Three men wearing white uniforms and riding in a pickup truck killed al-Radhi outside the Al-Arusa Hotel in the city's center, Saad Hassan, an eyewitness and reporter for the daily newspaper Al-Sabah, told Aswat al-Iraq.
Al-Radhi had finished covering a journalism workshop for Radio Free Iraq, according to a statement by its parent, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Hassan told Aswat al-Iraq that al-Radhi was talking to a workshop leader when the gunmen began firing. RFE/RL said al-Radhi was shot four times and died at the scene; several other journalists were injured. Eyewitnesses said nearby Iraqi police did not intervene during the attack, Aswat al-Iraq reported.
RFE/RL reported that al-Radhi had received prior threats because of his work for a "foreign agency." Radio Free Iraq is the Arabic-language service of RFE/RL in Iraq and broadcasts from the network's headquarters in Prague. In April, Radio Free Iraq reporter Khamail Khalaf was kidnapped and murdered in Baghdad.
Mohammad Hilal Karji, Baghdad TV, June 6, Baghdad
Karji, a correspondent for the Jordan-based satellite channel Baghdad TV, and his cousin were traveling to Baghdad for work when they were stopped at an Iraqi army checkpoint in the town of Yusufiya, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, according to a source at the station who requested anonymity. They were handed over to armed men who claimed they were security officers and who were in a car stationed by the checkpoint, the source said.
Karji and his cousin tried to escape, but only the cousin was able to flee, the source said.
The gunmen were suspected members of the Mahdi Army, a militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, according to the source at the station. The source said Karji was shot in the head and that the body showed signs of torture.
Karji was believed to be killed because of his affiliation with Baghdad TV, where he worked for two years, the source told CPJ. The channel, owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a large Sunni political group, has lost at least seven other employees since June 2005. Many journalists with Baghdad TV have received death threats and the channel was previously attacked by a truck laden with explosives in one incident and shelled by insurgents in another. These attacks forced the channel to relocate their main headquarters to Jordan.
Sahar Hussein Ali al-Haydari, National Iraqi News Agency and Aswat al-Iraq, June 7, 2007, Mosul
Al-Haydari, 44, was slain by unidentified gunmen who answered her cell phone after the killing and told the caller "she went to hell." Al-Haydari was shopping in Mosul's Al-Hadbaa neighborhood when four unidentified gunmen got out of their vehicle, gunned her down, and fled the scene, taking her cell phone with them, local journalists told CPJ.
Earlier, she had been reporting news of a suicide attack on a police station in the nearby town of Al-Rabiya, according to the National Iraqi News Agency. When a police captain called to give her more information, the killers answered her phone, telling him, "She went to hell," according to a local journalist who spoke with the captain.
Al-Haydari had previously told CPJ that she had received many death threats. Early last year, she was twice targeted for abduction; one attempt failed, and she was rescued the other time. In March 2006, al-Haydari told CPJ she had been shot, requiring surgery. In August 2006, gunmen killed her daughter's fianc....
In her final e-mail to CPJ, on March 22, al-Haydari said her name was on a death list composed of journalists and police officers. It had been circulated throughout Mosul and posted on her house door. According to the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq, the list was issued by the "Emir of the Islamic State in Mosul," the local leader of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State in Iraq.
Al-Haydari was a correspondent for the National Iraqi News Agency and Aswat al-Iraq and a contributor to a number of other Iraqi media outlets. She also was a journalist trainee and correspondent for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting, an organization that trains local journalists in war coverage. She visited CPJ's offices in New York in late 2005, and CPJ helped relocate her husband and four children to Damascus, Syria, after she received death threats.
Al-Haydari is the second employee for Aswat al-Iraq killed this year. On May 30, Nazar Abdulwahid al-Radhi, 38, was gunned down in the southern city of Al-Amarah.
Aref Ali Filaih, Aswat al-Iraq, June 11, 2007, Al-Khalis
Filaih, correspondent for the independent news agency Aswat al-Iraq, was killed by a roadside bomb while driving to an assignment south of Al-Khalis in Diyala province, Aswat al-Iraq reported. Filaih, 32, had worked as Aswat al-Iraq's correspondent in the violence-plagued province since December 2006, the news agency said.
Filaih Wuday Mijthab, Al-Sabah, June 17, 2007, Baghdad
Mijthab's body was found in Baghdad's main morgue four days after he was abducted by armed men. Mijthab, who worked with the government-run daily Al-Sabah, suffered bullet wounds to the head, the independent news agency Voices of Iraq reported.
There was no claim of responsibility. Insurgent and other armed groups have frequently targeted Al-Sabah and other state-run media because of their ties to the U.S.-supported Iraqi government. The New York Times reported on Monday that Mijthab could have been targeted by Shiite groups because of his past work for state-run media under the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Mijthab, like many of the newspaper's employees, had received numerous telephone threats while working at Al-Sabah, the paper reported.
Gunmen in three vehicles intercepted Mijthab, 53 as he was traveling to work in Baghdad's eastern Shiite neighborhood of Al-Habibiya. Mijthab, who was with his eldest son and a driver, was ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint, according to the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press freedom organization. Mijthab was taken to an unknown location; his son and the driver were not seized.
Hamid Abed Sarhan, freelance, June 26, 2007, Baghdad
A car carrying several gunmen intercepted Sarhan, a freelance journalist and a public relations director at Baghdad's municipal secretariat, while he was driving home from work in Baghdad's Al-Saydiya neighborhood, a local journalist with intimate knowledge of the case told CPJ. The gunmen shot the journalist and sped away.
Iraqi police were about 300 meters (328 yards) from the incident and responded quickly to the scene, the source said. They called Abed Sarhan's sons who identified the body at a nearby police station and transported him to a hospital.
Several CPJ sources familiar with the case said that Sarhan's work was the only plausible motive for his killing. Sarhan was a well-known journalist who worked as a managing editor at the Iraqi News Agency until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to CPJ sources. Since then, he worked as managing editor for the independent daily Al-Mashriq and the now-defunct weekly Al-Wihda al-Wataniya. He was the editor-in-chief of the now-defunct weekly Iraqiyoun. In 2005, Sarhan became the managing editor of Baghdad's municipal secretariatweekly Sawt Baghdad. He later became a public relations director for the secretariat.
Sarhan freelanced for several national and international Arabic-language newspapers, including the Iraqi dailies Azzaman and Al-Mashriq, according to the CPJ source. He also appeared as an analyst on several programs for Iraqi satellite channels such as Al-Baghdadia and Al-Sharqiya. He regularly wrote articles and reports for Sawt Baghdad as part of his job for the secretariat, the source said.
Al-Saydiya, located in the Al-Rasheed district controlled by al-Qaeda in Iraq, has been a hotbed of violence.
Sarmad Hamdi Shaker, Baghdad TV, June 27, 2007, Baghdad
Shaker, 43, a correspondent for the satellite channel Baghdad TV, left his home in Baghdad's Al-Jamia neighborhood for work on the morning of June 27. He was waiting on the street for a friend to pick him up, a source at the station told CPJ, when a car carrying several gunmen alongside him and two armed occupants asked him to get in for questioning, the source said. His body was found on the street in the same neighborhood that afternoon, according to the source.
Shaker's wife and three children fled the neighborhood and moved north of Baghdad.
The source said the gunmen were suspected members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and that Shaker was killed because he worked for Baghdad TV, a moderate Sunni channel that has been repeatedly targeted by both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups, according to staff.
Shaker worked at Baghdad TV for two years, the source told CPJ. The channel, owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a large Sunni political group, has lost at least seven other employees since June 2005. Many journalists with Baghdad TV have received death threats and the channel was previously attacked by a truck laden with explosives in one incident and shelled by insurgents in another. These attacks forced the channel to relocate its headquarters to Jordan.
Namir Noor-Eldeen, Reuters, July 12, 2007, Baghdad
Photographer Noor-Eldeen, 22, was killed in eastern Baghdad during what witnesses described as a U.S. helicopter attack. The strike claimed the lives of 10 other Iraqis in the Al-Amin al-Thaniyah neighborhood, Reuters reported, citing a preliminary Iraqi police report. The victims included Noor-Eldeen's driver and camera assistant, Saeed Chmagh.
Witnesses told Reuters that Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh arrived in the neighborhood about the time a U.S. helicopter fired on a minivan. Video footage showed that the minivan was destroyed, Reuters reported. Initial reports suggested that the air strike took place during clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents, but witnesses later said there were no clashes, according to Reuters.
The Multi-National Force-Iraq press desk in Baghdad did not immediately respond to CPJ's telephone and e-mail inquiries seeking comment. Four other Reuters employees have been killed on assignment in Iraq, the largest loss suffered by an international news organization in the conflict, CPJ research shows.
Khalid W. Hassan, The New York Times, July 13, 2007, Baghdad
Khalid W. Hassan, 23, a reporter and interpreter, was shot while driving to work in the south central Seiydia district, the newspaper reported. He had called the bureau to say that he was taking an alternative route because his usual way was blocked by a security checkpoint, the newspaper said. The Times reported that the journalist called his mother a half hour later to say, "I've been shot." The family notified the newspaper that Hassan later died.
An Iraqi of Palestinian descent, Hassan had worked for the Times Baghdad bureau since fall 2003, the newspaper said. He is survived by his mother and four sisters. He was the second New York Times employee killed on assignment in Iraq, CPJ research shows. Times reporter Fakher Haider, 38, was killed in Basra in September 2005.
Mustafa Gaimayani, Kirkuk al-Yawm and Hawal, July 16, 2007, Kirkuk
Majeed Mohammed, Kirkuk al-Yawm and Hawal , July 16, 2007, Kirkuk
A triple bomb attack in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed at least 85 people, including an editor and a reporter, and wounded more than 180 others.
A suicide attacker driving a truck packed with explosives detonated the vehicle near one of the offices of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, in central Kirkuk, according to international news reports.
The blast damaged several adjacent buildings including the offices of the Kirkuk Cultural and Social Association, killing Mustafa Gaimayani, an editor for Kirkuk al-Yawm, and Majeed Mohammed, a sports reporter for the paper, Hashwan Dawoudi, deputy head of the association, told CPJ.
The association, which is funded by the Kurdistan Regional Government, publishes the weekly newspaper Kirkuk al-Yawm and the quarterly Kirkuk magazine, Dawoudi said.
At the time of the blast Mohammed and Gaimayani were working on the weekly in preparation for its publication on Thursday, Dawoudi said. Seven other editors, including the editors in chief of both Kirkuk al-Yawm and Kirkuk were wounded in the explosion, he added.
Mohammed was also a correspondent and Gaimayani a writer for the Kurdish-language weekly Hawal, Dawoudi told CPJ. Seven years ago, Dawoudi established Hawal Media Foundation, which publishes four newspapers, including Hawal and the Arabic-language weekly Al-Naba.
Gaimayani, who was also known as Mustafa Darwish, was in his mid-40s. He was a dual national with Swedish citizenship who moved with his family to Sweden in 1981 and returned by to northern Iraq about four months ago to work for Hawal Media Foundation, Dawoudi told CPJ. Majeed Mohammed was in his mid-30s.
Amer Malallah al-Rashidi, Al-Mosuliya, September 3, 2007 Mosul
Amer Malallah al-Rashidi, 42, a camera operator for the private satellite channel Al-Mosuliya, left his relative's house in Mosul's eastern Al-Jazair neighborhood in the evening to catch a taxi when gunmen in a car opened fire on him, a source at the station told CPJ. The source said that after al-Rashidi fell to the ground, one of the gunmen dismounted the car and shot him at close range.
The source, who asked not to be identified, believed that al-Rashidi was targeted because he was a journalist. Al-Rashidi was a well-known camera operator in Mosul, a place where armed groups have frequently targeted journalists. Al-Rashidi did not receive death threat prior to his shooting, the source told CPJ.
Before joining Al-Mosuliya, al-Rashidi worked for the state-run Al-Iraqiya channel, according to the source at the station. Al-Mosuliya satellite channel was established about a year ago to cover news in Nineveh province.
Salih Saif Aldin, The Washington Post, October 14, 2007, Baghdad
Saif Aldin, 32, was killed at close range by a single gunshot to the head while photographing fire-damaged houses on a street in Baghdad’s southern neighborhood of Saydiya, The Post reported. Saif Aldin was on assignment interviewing residents about sectarian violence raging between Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents in the neighborhood, long a center of violence, the newspaper said. The Post reported that a man used Saif Aldin’s cell phone to inform an employee at the paper that the journalist was killed.
Washington Post Baghdad Bureau Chief Sudarsan Raghavan told CPJ that it was murky as to who shot Saif Aldin and why. Some residents suspect that the Iraqi army, some of whose members are loyal to the Mahdi Army, a militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was responsible for the slaying, The Post reported. Iraqi police said they suspected Sunni gunmen from the Awakening Council, a group consisting of Sunni tribes working alongside U.S. forces, The Post said.
Saif Aldin, who wrote under the pseudonym Salih Dehema for security purposes, began his journalism career as a reporter for the weekly Al-Iraq al-Yawm in Tikrit, and joined The Post in January 2004 as a stringer, the newspaper said. Saif Aldin had been arrested, beaten, and threatened while carrying out his assignments.
Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Post, called Saif Aldin a “brave and valuable reporter who contributed much to our coverage of Iraq.” Saif Aldin was known for his tenacity and his willingness to take assignments that put him in harm's way, The Post reported.
Shehab Mohammad al-Hiti, Baghdad al-Youm, October 28, 2007, Baghdad
Al-Hiti, 27, an editor for the fledgling weekly Baghdad al-Youm, was last seen leaving his home in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Al-Jamia to go to the paper’s offices around mid-day, a source at the paper told CPJ. Iraqi security forces found the journalist’s body later that afternoon in Baghdad’s northeastern Ur neighborhood and transported it to Baghdad’s Al-Tib al-Adli Hospital morgue, he said.
A local journalist told CPJ that Ur neighborhood is adjacent to Baghdad’s Sadr City, controlled by the Mahdi Army, led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The CPJ source said that he was not aware of any prior death threats against the journalist. Baghdad al-Youm had been publishing for only three weeks, he said.
