Three Iraqi journalists killed
23/02/2006 20:51  - (SA)  

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Samarra - The bodies of three Iraqi journalists, including a well-known correspondent for Al-Arabiya television, were found on Thursday near Samarra, police and the Arabic network said.

Al-Arabiya's Atwar Bahjat and two colleagues from the local Wassan media company, engineer Adnan Khairullah and cameraman Khalid Mahmoud, were in the city to cover the bombing Wednesday of a revered Shiite shrine.

Their employers lost contact with the journalists - all Sunnis - that night.

Their bullet-riddled bodies were found on Thursday morning near their vehicle, cameras and satellite dish on the outskirts of the city 95km north of Baghdad, police spokesperson Laith Muhammad said.

President Jalal Talabani's office called the killing "a criminal and cowardly act" in a statement that praised Bahjat and her colleagues as professional journalists who "never stopped defending the truth."

When a reporter asked Talabani during a news conference to allow journalists to carry weapons to defend themselves, he said: "Send me an official request and I will approve it and inform concerned agencies to give you the right to carry arms."

The three journalists had been reporting live on Wednesday from the edge of Samarra, which was sealed off by security forces after the early morning explosion at the Askariya shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque.

Bahjat's last broadcast was at 18:00 (15:00 GMT), Al-Arabiya said.

The team was conducting interviews when two gunmen pulled up in pickup truck, shooting in the air and shouting: "We want the correspondent," according to a cameraman who evaded capture, Al-Arabiya reported.

The crowd gathered around the journalists scattered.

The gunmen then shot the three and fled, the station reported.

Their bodies were found about 10km northeast of Samarra, police said.

A total of 82 journalists and media assistants have been killed since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, including seven this year, according to a Reporters Without Borders Count.

- AP

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