BAGHDAD - Gunmen on Wednesday killed an Iraqi TV journalist, the second to be slain in Iraq in as many days, highlighting the dangers media workers continue to face in the country seven years after the U.S.-led invasion.
While a number of foreign correspondents were killed in the years immediately following the invasion, Iraqi journalists are now the main target, especially photographers and TV journalists who are easier to spot, according to Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog.
The group released a report Tuesday titled "The Iraq War: A Heavy Death Toll for the Media," which coincided with the killing of Riyad Assariyeh, an anchor at state-run Iraqiya TV.
Assariyeh also served on Baghdad's Provincial Council. He was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in a western Baghdad neighborhood.
In the northern city of Mosul, Safaa Abdul-Hameed, a correspondent for a local TV station, was killed near his home in the eastern part of the city. The gunmen shot him from a speeding car, police said.
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Abdul-Hameed, a father of six, had worked at al-Mousiliyah channel for a year, colleagues said.
At least 230 media workers have been killed in Iraq since 2003, according to Reporters Without Borders. Of those killed, 172 were journalists. The rest were translators, drivers and assistants.
Also Wednesday, at least six people were killed in two separate bombings in Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.
In the first, three policemen and one civilian were killed when a parked car bomb exploded near a bus station in the southern Baiyaa neighborhood.
A second bomb targeting police and rescue services arriving at the blast site detonated minutes later. There were no reports on casualties from the second blast.
Two bombs also killed two people and wounded 12 more at a bus station in eastern Baghdad, health officials said.
US toll in Iraq
4,421
Deaths
31,934
Wounded
Source: Department of Defense
