Several of these media workers were killed alongside reporters on assignment. Others may have been singled out for assassination as part of a larger effort by insurgents to intimidate Iraqis who work for foreign organizations, including the news media.
CPJ research indicates that the following media workers were killed in Iraq since the start of the war.
Media Workers Killed in Iraq in 2003: 2
Hussein Othman, ITV News, March 22, 2003, Iman Anas
On March 22, veteran ITV News correspondent Terry Lloyd, cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Othman came under fire while driving to the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Lloyd was also killed and Nerac remains missing.
The three, along with cameraman Daniel Demoustier, were traveling in two marked press vehicles in the town of Iman Anas, near Al-Zubayr, when they came under fire, according to the British TV network ITN, which produces ITV News.
Demoustier said the vehicles had been pursued by Iraqi troops who may have been attempting to surrender to the journalists. Demoustier reported that the incoming fire to their vehicles likely came from U.S. or British forces.
Demoustier, whose car crashed into a ditch and caught fire, was injured but escaped. He said he did not see what happened to Lloyd, who was seated next to him, or to the other crew members. Lloyd's body was recovered in a hospital in Basra days later.
The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2003 that Lloyd's SUV and another vehicle belonging to his colleagues came under fire from U.S. Marines. The article cited accounts from U.S. troops who recalled opening fire on cars marked "TV." Soldiers said they believed that Iraqi suicide bombers were using the cars to attack U.S. troops.
Citing a report from a British security firm commissioned by ITN to investigate the incident, the Journal reported that Lloyd's car was hit by both coalition and Iraqi fire.
The Journal quoted the report as saying that "[t]he Iraqis no doubt mounted an attack using the ITN crew as cover, or perhaps stumbled into the U.S. forces whilst attempting to detain the ITN crew." The report speculated that Nerac and Othman might have been pulled out of their vehicle before it came under fire from coalition forces, and then Iraqi forces used the SUV to attack the coalition forces.
In June 2004, British military investigators said DNA testing confirmed that remains found at the site were those of Othman. Nerac's whereabouts have not been confirmed.
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, BBC, April 6, 2003, near Mosul
Muhamed, a translator working for the BBC, was killed in a case of "friendly fire" when a U.S. warplane dropped a bomb on a convoy of Kurdish soldiers who were traveling near Mosul.
According to press reports, at least 18 people were killed, including members of U.S. Special Forces who were traveling with the convoy. Two BBC journalists, correspondent John Simpson and producer Tom Giles, were injured.
Media Workers Killed in Iraq in 2004: 17
Yasser Khatab, CNN, January 27, 2004, outside Baghdad
Khatab, a driver for the U.S. cable news network CNN, was killed in an ambush in the outskirts of Baghdad, CNN reported. CNN producer Duraid Isa Mohammed was also killed in the attack.
The network said Khatab and Mohammed died of multiple gunshot wounds after their two-car convoy came under fire from unidentified assailants. A bullet grazed the head of cameraman Scott McWhinnie, who was traveling in the second vehicle, CNN said. He was treated at a nearby military base. The remaining members of the convoy _ two CNN journalists, a security adviser, and the second driver _ were unharmed.
According to CNN, the vehicles were headed north toward Baghdad when a rust-colored Opel approached from behind. A single gunman with an AK-47, positioned through the sunroof, opened fire on one of the vehicles. CNN's vice president for international public relations, Nigel Pritchard, told CPJ that both CNN cars were unmarked and the attackers may not have been aware they were journalists.
Selwan Abdelghani Medhi al-Niemi, Voice of America, March 5, 2004, Baghdad
Al-Niemi, a freelance translator working for the U.S.-funded Voice of America (VOA), was fatally shot while driving home from a relative's house. His mother and 4-year-old daughter were also killed. VOA said a motive had not been established.
Al-Niemi's wife, Ban Adil Serhan, a former translator for the U.S.-based media company Knight-Ridder, told CPJ that she believes she was also an intended target _ and that the assailants mistook al-Niemi's mother for her.
On the day of her husband's funeral, she said, her brother discovered a handwritten note outside the family's front door. Citing Quranic verses, the note said people who work with "infidels" should be killed and warned that Adil Serhan's "turn will come soon, God willing."
Najeed Rashid and Muhammad Ahmad Sarham, Iraq Media Network/Diyala TV, March 18, 2004, Baqouba
Technician Rashid and security guard Sarham, working with the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA's) Iraq Media Network, were killed in the town of Baqouba when unidentified assailants opened fire on a bus carrying several employees of the IMN's Diyala Media Centre.
Diyala Media Centre produces IMN's Diyala TV, a local television station.
Nadia Nasrat, a news anchor for IMN was also killed in the attack, according to Charlie Reiser, a U.S. Army spokesman in Diyala. Ten others were seriously injured, he said.
A car carrying three men overtook the bus as it approached the station's entry road from the main highway, Reiser said. The assailants opened fire and then fled.
Reiser said the employees "were targeted because of their affiliation with the coalition forces."
Omar Kamal, Time, March 26, 2004, Baghdad
Kamal, an Iraqi translator working for the U.S.-based news weekly Time, died after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds in Baghdad two days earlier.
Kamal, who also worked as a fixer for the magazine, was shot March 24 while driving his car to an assignment, Time news director Howard Chua-Eoan said. Kamal, who suffered serious head wounds, was taken off life support on March 26.
Chua-Eoan said the circumstances of the shooting were unclear, but a number of Iraqis working for Time received threats from a variety of sources.
Hussein Saleh, Al-Iraqiyya TV, April 19, 2004, near Samara
A driver for the U.S.-funded Al-Iraqiya TV, he was killed by gunfire from U.S. forces near a checkpoint close to the Iraqi city of Samara, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Baghdad. Correspondent Asaad Kadhim was killed and cameraman Jassem Kamel was injured.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for coalition forces in Iraq, confirmed on April 20 that U.S. troops killed the driver and journalist. According to media reports, Kimmitt said coalition forces at the checkpoint fired several warning shots to try to stop the journalists' vehicle. When the vehicle ignored those shots, Kimmitt said, forces fired at the car.
The Associated Press reported that Kimmitt said there were signs in the area indicating that filming was banned at both the base and the checkpoint. According to the AP, Kimmitt said the signs were designed to prevent Iraqi insurgents from conducting surveillance in the area.
Kamel told the AP that no warning shots had been fired at the vehicle.
CPJ continues to investigate this case.
Mohamed Najmedin, freelance, May 27, 2004, Mahmoudiyya
An interpreter working for Japanese freelance journalists Shinsuke Hashida and Kotaro Ogawa, he was killed along with the two journalists when their car was attacked by gunmen in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles (30
kilometers) south of Baghdad, according to news reports. (Agence France-Presse (AFP) listed the interpreter as Mohamed Najmedin. Some Japanese media accounts reported his name as Mohammed Abu Rwaa.)
The group was traveling to Baghdad from the southern city of Samawah, where Japan deployed hundreds of troops. The Associated Press reported that the two journalists were working for the Japanese daily Nikkan Gendai. Japanese TV channel NHK said they also worked for several other Japanese news organizations.
According to press reports, the journalists' car burst into flames after the attack. AFP and the Reuters news agency reported that the car was hit by rocket propelled grenade fire. The driver, an Iraqi who survived the incident and spoke with NHK, said he was able to flee before the car exploded.
Samya Abdel Jabar and Mahmood Daoud, Al-Sabah al-Jedid, May 29, 2004, Baghdad
Abdel Jabar and Daoud, a driver and bodyguard for the Iraqi daily Al-Sabah al-Jedid, were abducted and killed by gunmen. Both men were working for Al-Sabah al-Jedid editor Ismael Zayer.
A group of men arrived at Zayer's house around 9 a.m. in a police car and two civilian cars, Zayer told CPJ an e-mailed statement. The group included an armed police captain and at least two armed men in plain clothes, he said.
They told Zayer he was wanted for questioning because, they said, his car had been involved in a crime. After trying unsuccessfully to force Zayer into the car, they allowed him to go inside and change clothes. Inside, Zayer recounted, he phoned Iraq's interior minister who said no arrest warrant had been issued and warned that Zayer should not leave with the men. When he returned outside, Zayer said, the armed men were gone and neighbors said Abdel Jabar and Daoud had been taken.
Police found both men fatally shot later that day, according to Zayer.
Al-Sabah al-Jedid was formed in 2004 after breaking away from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)-backed daily Al-Sabah, following a dispute between Zayer and the CPA.
Zayer said the offices of Al-Sabah sustained at least five rocket propelled grenade attacks, and 20 people were arrested last year in a plot to kill him.
Unidentified driver working for freelance journalist Enzo Baldoni, on or about August 28, 2004, en route to Najaf
The driver and Baldoni were ambushed by gunmen while traveling outside Baghdad, accordinmg to news reports and CPJ sources. The two were reported missing on August 20. They were believed to be heading to the southern city of Najaf, where U.S. forces had battled with Shiite insurgents for several weeks.
Baldoni was held captive by a militant group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq, which demanded Italy withdraw its troops in exchange for the journalist's release. On August 26, the Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera said it received a video from the group that showed Baldoni had been killed.
The driver's whereabouts were not clear during that time. But officials from Iraq's interior ministry told CPJ that the driver's body was located on August 28 at a hospital in the Iraqi town of Iskandiryah. They said the victim had been shot to death and that his body had been burned.
Ismail Taher Mohsin, The Associated Press, September 2, 2004, Baghdad
Mohsin, a driver working for The Associated Press in Iraq, was killed when gunmen opened fire on his car near his home in the Ghazaliyya neighborhood of Baghdad. Mohsin had been en route to Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque while on assignment for the AP.
It was unclear who the gunmen were or why they carried out the attack. The AP reported that nothing was stolen from Mohsin's body, but said that when the driver's relatives and colleagues waited for police at the scene of the crime "a group of armed men in a van pulled up and asked if the car's driver was dead and then drove off."
Mohsin had not received threats or warnings, according to his relatives, but neighbors had observed a suspicious car circling around Mohsin's house the night before the incident, the AP reported.
Police told the AP that two translators and two drivers who were believed to have worked for Americans had been shot dead in the same neighborhood.
In the days leading up to his death, Mohsin, had gone several times to the Umm al-Qura mosque, where a group of Muslim clerics with reputed links to insurgents, had given a press conference regarding the fate of two French journalists who were taken hostage, according to the AP.
Ahmed Jassem, Niniveh Television, October 7, 2004, Mosul
Jassem, an engineer and technical director for Nineveh TV, a local television affiliate of the U.S.-backed national Iraq Media Network (IMN), was killed in a drive-by shooting while traveling to work, according to a friend and colleague. No group has claimed responsibility for Jassem's murder and authorities have not apprehended any suspects, according to the source.
While the motive for the killing remains unclear, employees of IMN and Nineveh TV have been targeted by insurgents and the offices of Nineveh TV in Mosul have been hit repeatedly by mortar rounds from insurgents. Jassem's colleague believes he was killed because of his affiliation with Nineveh TV, noting that the murder occurred during a period of increased violence in Mosul and around the time Nineveh TV was airing programs critical of insurgents in Iraq.
Ali Adnan, Hassan Alwan, Ramziya Moushee, Alahin Hussein, Nabil Hussein, all of Al-Arabiya, October 30, 2004, Baghdad
A car bomb exploded in front Al-Arabiya's Baghdad bureau, killing Adnan, a security guard; Alwan, an engineer; kitchen staff members Moushee and Hussein; and Hussein, a gardener. Al-Arabiya said 14 other bureau employees, among them five journalists, were wounded in the blast. The bureau, in the upscale Mansour neighborhood, was used by two other Saudi-owned news stations-the satellite channel Al-Akhbariya and Al-Arabiya's sister channel, Middle East Broadcasting (MBC).
Al-Arabiya's Web site reported Sunday that a previously unknown group calling itself the "Jihad Martyrs Brigades" claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on the Internet. The statement called Saturday's attack "just a warning" and threatened more attacks on Al-Arabiya and other media outlets in Iraq. The statement's authenticity could not be independently verified.
Earlier, a group calling itself the 1920 Brigades said it had carried out the attack, but Al-Arabiya later reported that the same group denied responsibility in a recorded tape.
About 35 staffers were meeting on the first floor when the bomb exploded directly outside the bureau's front entrance. The blast, which took place in a neighborhood that also houses Iraqi officials and government buildings, left a large crater in the street outside and collapsed the building's first floor, causing a fire.
Al-Arabiya's Web site reported that the station has received numerous threats from those describing themselves as supporters of "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" protesting its coverage, and demanding that the station support the "jihad" against the U.S occupation and Iraqi government.
Media Workers Killed in Iraq in 2005: 2
Unidentified driver, Al-Hurra, February 25, 2005, Iskandiriyah
A driver working for Mohammad Sherif Ali, an Iraqi journalist working for Al-Hurra, a U.S.-funded Arabic television station, was killed when gunmen attacked their car in Iskandiriyah, a town about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Baghdad. Ali was seriously injured in the attack.
Laiq Ibrahim Nowruz al-Kakaie, Kurdistan TV, March 10, 2005, Kirkuk
Al-Kakaie, 43, director of administration for the Kirkuk office of Kurdistan TV, a station affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was shot and killed by armed assailants as he was driving to work, according to colleagues and a KDP media official.
The shooting took place in the Hay al-Askari neighborhood of Kirkuk, where al-Kakaie lived, at around 8:30 in the morning, the sources said. Al-Kakaie died instantly. His driver, who was wounded in the attack, survived his injuries.