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Three Iraqi journalists killed near Iraq's
Kirkuk
9.5.2007 |
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May 9, 2007
Kirkuk, Iraq-Kurdistan region border, --
Three Iraqi journalists and their driver were
dragged from their car, tortured and then shot dead
near
the northern city of Kirkuk on Wednesday, police
said.
The bodies of the four men all bore deep slash marks
across their faces and limbs, television pictures
showed.
Police earlier said all four were journalists.
They said one of the men was the well-known director
of a local media organization which publishes
several newspapers.
They said gunmen intercepted the journalists
southwest of Kirkuk near the small town of Rashad.
Police said they believed the attack was prompted
because the men were journalists. They were on a
private journey to Rashad at the time, police said.
Iraq is the most dangerous country in the world for
reporters.
The Vienna-based International Press Institute said
in April that 46 journalists were killed last year
in the country, of whom 44 were Iraqis.
On Sunday, a Russian freelance photographer was
killed in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad
while on patrol with U.S. forces. Six soldiers were
also killed in that attack.
Reuters
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Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
about 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
Based on Iraq's Constitution a referendum is to be
held in late 2007 to decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
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