Iraqi journalist killed in Iraq

Photo: Iraqi journalist killed in Iraq

A second journalist was killed and his two guards wounded in an ambush north of Baghdad , police said Monday.

Dhi Abdul-Razak al-Dibo, a 32-year-old freelance reporter, was driving his BMW with his guards near Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, Kirkuk police spokesman Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said.

Al-Dibo's family said he lived in Kirkuk and contributed stories to at least two weekly newspapers in Tikrit, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad.

The relatives, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they feared reprisals, said al-Dibo is survived by his wife.

The attack occurred a day after The Washington Post said one of its Iraqi correspondents had been shot to death while on assignment in Baghdad.

Salih Saif Aldin, 32, an Iraqi who sometimes wrote under the name Salih Dehema for security reasons, was killed Sunday while reporting on the violence in the neighborhood of Sadiyah, according to a statement from the newspaper.

Sadiyah is a formerly religiously mixed neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad that is now dominated by Shiites after most Sunnis were driven out by sectarian violence.

Aldin began working for the newspaper in early 2004 as a stringer in his hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad, and later moved to the capital, the newspaper said.

Iraqi journalists working for local or international media frequently come under threats from insurgents because of their reporting or their affiliation with Western organizations.

Excluding the latest deaths reported, at least 118 journalists and 41 media support workers have been killed in Iraq since the war started in March 2003, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.