Al-Watan's deputy chief editor, Waqas al-Dowaini, told the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, a local press freedom organization, that the guards were returning to Tikrit, northwest of Baghdad, after escorting the paper's chairman, Hatem Mawloud Mokhles, to Arbil. The gunmen attacked near Houd 18 village, southwest of Kirkuk. Al-Dowaini told the observatory that the victims were employed as guards for the paper and as personal guards for Mokhles, secretary-general of the Iraqi National Movement political party.




