Iraq: New York Times Reporter Slain

[sabra]

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.209237444&par=0

IRAQ: NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER SLAIN


Baghdad, 19 Sept. (AKI) - The body of an Iraqi journalist working for the US daily New York Times was found abandoned in a street near the southern city of Basra on Monday. Four gunmen, apparently wearing police uniforms, abducted the reporter, Fakher Al-Tamini, from his home on Sunday night. The group told his wife they were taking Al-Tamini away as part of a "routine investigation."

Al-Tamimi, 38, began working for the New York Times in Iraq in 2003 and was also employed as a reporter by a local television station.

[goforit]

1. This is just so sad.

Will we ever know the real story.

[IndianaGreen]

23. It is no secret that the US and the UK have been running death squads

This particular reporter may have reported something we didn't like, so we did to him what Bush would do in the US if he ever gets the power from Congress to do it.

We did the same thing in Vietnam, but it failed there just as it will fail in Iraq.

[Cassandra]

2. Maybe his wife...

can sue Judith Miller.....and throw Bill Keller in for good measure.

[Onlooker]

3. It's kind of strange

It's terribly sad, but it also seems kind of idiotic. The only ones who want to scare the media away are the government and U.S., which doesn't want the world to know what really is going on in Iraq.

[Barrett808]

4. "Peaceful Basra"

Where we've handed over control to "Iraqi forces."

[Coexist]

5. OMFG - nominated.

Freedom is on the march... la la la.... I can't hear you... we are winning... la la la.....

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. "Four gunmen, apparently wearing police uniforms"

No hint, of course, that the gunmen might have actually BEEN policemen.

It's the Salvador Solution again.

What is the journalist toll, so far?

[truth2power]

8. You're right. This stinks of Negroponte. n/t

[Barrett808]

9. Possibly. But I think the Islamist militias are quite as capable...

...of think kind of horror as Negroponte brand death squads.

In fact, these may be the very same fellows who executed conservative journalist Stephen Vincent, who would certainly not have been at the top of a US-sponsored death squad's hit list.

[Henny Penny]

18. Vincent may well have been on a hit list if they thought he

was going to publish something critical that would hit home with the conservative support...

I imagine even the most ardent supporter isn't going to stay that way too long once they're actually out there!

[tom_paine]

11. The Ambassador of Death Squads and his successors are hard at work

spreading terror and murder with as much gleeful abandon as the 1980s.

[saigon68]

31. Negroponte is an EVIL EVIL CRIMINAL

Look at his past record of Murder and Mayhem.

[Roland99]

7. The Brits have been running into more resistance down there.

The Islamic fundamentalists are ruling that city and perhaps getting fed up with Western occupiers and influences?

[MADem]

12. If they are wearing helmets and body armor, it ain't going well

You can't even go to the chow hall in the Green Zone without all your shit -- this whole misadventure has been a disaster from start to present.

[Straight Shooter]

10. Hey, "Judas" Miller, carve another notch in your bloody gun.

There isn't a word vile enough in the English language to describe that waste of oxygen. I hope she bloody rots in prison.

[Supersedeas]

15. she will be released and duly rewarded for her filthy loyalty soon enough

[leftchick]

Iraqi working for NYT found shot dead in Basra

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BAK925609.htm


BASRA, Iraq, Sept 19 (Reuters) - An Iraqi working as a reporter for the New York Times was found dead in the southern city of Basra on Monday after being kidnapped by masked men, family members and a doctor said.

Fakher Haider, who had worked for the Times for 2-1/2 years, was found with his hands bound and a single bullet wound to the head, a doctor in the forensic department of Basra's hospital told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Employees of the New York Times in Baghdad said they couldn't confirm Haider's death but said they were enquiring into reports that he had been kidnapped and killed.

Haider's brother told Reuters in Basra that four masked men in a dark Toyota vehicle had arrived at the family home in an apartment complex in central Basra after midnight on Sunday.

[CBGLuthier]

13. and then 2 "undercover" British soldiers are arrested

Makes me wonder it does.

[Henny Penny]

17. al jazeera adds a little bit more...

"Al-Tamimi's body was found in Al-Kiblah, a southwestern district of Basra, an area patrolled by British forces. "He was shot in the head," his wife said."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9E60DCBA-3470-4FF5-AA15-8000CCF163E9.htm

[barb162]

14. What goes on in the heads of people who kill reporters?

[Jacobin]

20. I think at this point, all infidels are targets

Who could blame them after what this country has done to their country. And don't forget, the NYT was a huge enabler of the Cheney Administration in going to war.

[WhiteTara]

22. I didn't think these were Iraqi resistance killings

but the US supported Iraqis. :shrug:

[rocktivity]

16. And what does the New York Times have to say?

Iraqi Working for Times Is Killed, Relatives Say

An Iraqi journalist and photographer working for The New York Times in Basra was found dead early this morning in Basra after being abducted from his home by a group of armed men wearing masks and claiming to be police officers, relatives said...A relative who viewed his body in the city morgue said he had at least one bullet hole in his head and bruises on his back as if he had been beaten.

...He worked part time for other news organizations, including Merbad TV, a local Basra station, and for publications including The London Guardian and National Geographic. But his principal affiliation was with The Times.

"Relatives Say"--as if they don't think it's worth confirming. How about a little grief, New York Times? How about a little righteous rage?

:mad:
rocknation

[progressivebydesign]

19. Gunmen wearing police uniforms??

How do they know it was not the police. If I recall, wasn't one of the American-supported leaders there in Iraq famous for using the police to kill people? Is there any proof that these were not real police of some type that did it? Why would the insurgents kill a reporter?

[Cocoa]

21. all the luminaries that are visiting Judy Miller in jail

will any of them say a word about her colleauge? Will she?

[Moderator]

24. kick to combine

[NightOwwl]

25. Reporter Working for Times Abducted and Slain in Iraq (NYT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 19 - An Iraqi journalist and photographer working for The New York Times in Basra was found dead early Monday after being abducted from his home by a group of armed men wearing masks and claiming to be police officers, relatives and witnesses said. The journalist, Fakher Haider, 38, was found with his hands bound and a bag over his head in a deserted area on the outskirts of Basra, in southern Iraq, hours after being taken from his house in that city. A relative who viewed his body in the city morgue said he had at least one bullet hole in his head and bruises on his back as if he had been beaten.

Mr. Haider had worked for The Times since April 2003 and had recently reported on the growing friction and violence among Basra's rival Shiite militias, which are widely believed to have infiltrated the police. He did part-time for work for other news organizations, including Merbad TV, a local Basra station, and for publications including The Guardian of London and National Geographic. But his principal affiliation was with The Times.

...

Mr. Haider is the second journalist to be killed in Basra in the past two months. In August, Steven Vincent, an American freelance reporter who was writing a book about the city, was abducted along with his Iraqi interpreter, and he was later found dead. The interpreter remains hospitalized.

Days earlier, Mr. Vincent had written an Op-Ed article for The Times in which he criticized the British security forces in the city for failing to act against the Shiite militias' growing power within the local police force.

Basra has grown increasingly violent, with a complex web of sectarian agendas playing itself out almost daily on the streets. Insurgents continue to attack Shiite civilians and military patrols, while Shiite militias fight among themselves and, recently, with British troops as well. On Sunday, Mr. Haider filed reports about angry demonstrations that had broken out after the arrest by British forces of two high-ranking members of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the renegade Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Shortly after midnight, two cars, one of them an unmarked sedan, one a police car, were driven up to Mr. Haider's apartment building, according to witnesses who said they could not be identified without jeopardizing their lives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/international/middleeast/20basra.html?ex=1284868800&en=ebc1868554916e52&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

He writes an article criticizing British security forces, and days later he is abducted and killed. Tin-foil hat time? I don't think so.

[prolesunited]

26. I think more journalists have been killed in Iraq

than in any other war. The odds don't seem to the favor those who chose not to be embedded.

[correlator]

27. Did you see Control Room?

Don't forget the journalists that the US killed "by accident".

[NightOwwl]

28. Looks like a must see.

From IMDB:

A chronicle which provides a rare window into the international perception of the Iraq War, courtesy of Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news outlet. Roundly criticized by Cabinet members and Pentagon officials for reporting with a pro-Iraqi bias, and strongly condemned for frequently airing civilian causalities as well as footage of American POWs, the station has revealed (and continues to show the world) everything about the Iraq War that the Bush administration did not want it to see.

[prolesunited]

29. I didn't, but take a look at this

Journalist shot dead in Basra, 68th killed in Iraq since start of war
Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage today at the murder of Fakher Haydar Al-Tamimi, an Iraqi journalist who worked for several foreign news media including the New York Times. He was kidnapped and then shot in the head today in the southern city of Basra.

<snip>


A total of 63 journalists were killed in the Vietnam war, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. Two TV cameramen are also missing in Iraq : Frédéric Nérac of Britain’s ITV News, missing since 22 March 2003, and Isam Hadi Muhsin Al-Shumary of Germany’s Suedostmedia, missing since 15 August 2004.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15039

[prolesunited]

30. I didn't, but take a look at this

Journalist shot dead in Basra, 68th killed in Iraq since start of war
Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage today at the murder of Fakher Haydar Al-Tamimi, an Iraqi journalist who worked for several foreign news media including the New York Times. He was kidnapped and then shot in the head today in the southern city of Basra.

<snip>


A total of 63 journalists were killed in the Vietnam war, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. Two TV cameramen are also missing in Iraq : Frédéric Nérac of Britain’s ITV News, missing since 22 March 2003, and Isam Hadi Muhsin Al-Shumary of Germany’s Suedostmedia, missing since 15 August 2004.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15039