Iraqi TV presenter killed in northern Iraq

An Iraqi presenter with a local television was killed on Sunday evening by gunmen in the city of Mosul, the capital of Iraq's Nineveh province, a provincial police source said.

Mazin al-Baghdadi, a program presenter in the television of al- Mowselya, was shot dead by gunmen in front of his house in the al- Hadbaa neighborhood in northeastern Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a source from the provincial operations command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The incident took place at about 6:00 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) when unidentified gunmen knocked the door of his house and opened fire on him before they fled the scene, the source said.

Baghdadi's death is the second in Mosul since September 8 when gunmen shot dead Safaa al-Khaiyatt, a religious program presenter in al-Mowselya television, as he was leaving his house to work at the television station in the city.

Khaiyatt, a middle-aged journalist was the father of five girls and one boy.

Statistics of the Iraqi Union of Journalists showed more than 275 of its members and media workers have been killed since the start of the U.S.-led war in March 2003.

According to reports by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, the media watchdog said the U.S. war with Iraq was the most lethal for journalists since World War II.

Reporters Without Borders tallied more than 230 cases of journalists and media staff have been killed in the country since the conflict broke out on March 20, 2003. "That is more than those killed during 20 years of the Vietnam War or the civil war in Algeria," it said.

Nineveh province and its capital Mosul have long been a stronghold for insurgent groups, including al-Qaida militants. The province has been the scene of major security crackdowns by the U. S. troops and Iraqi security forces to uproot the insurgency which erupted shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Source: Xinhua