New York Times Journalist Killed In Iraq
An Iraqi journalist for The New York Times was shot to death Friday on his way to work, less than an hour after he called the bureau to say a checkpoint had blocked his normal route, the newspaper said.
Khalid W. Hassan was the second Times employee to be killed in Iraq, the newspaper said.
Gunmen killed Hassan, 23, in the southwest Baghdad district of Sadiyah, according to a statement from Times spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis.
The newspaper reported on its Web site that Hassan had called the bureau to say he was blocked by a checkpoint. A half-hour later, the paper said, he called his mother and told her: "I've been shot."
He "was shot and killed on the way to work," the Times statement said. "The circumstances of the attack remain unclear at this time."
Hassan, who worked for the paper in Baghdad for four years, "was part of a large, sometimes unsung community of Iraqi news-gatherers, translators, and support staff, who take enormous risks every day to help us comprehend their country's struggle and torment," Bill Keller, the Times executive editor, said. "Without them, Americans' understanding of what is happening on the ground in Iraq would be much, much poorer."
He was the second Times employee to be killed in Iraq. The first, Fakher Haider, 38, a stringer for the paper in the southern city of Basra, was also shot to death in 2005.
Hassan's slaying came a day after two Iraqi staffers of the London-based Reuters news agency — a photographer and a driver — were killed by clashes between U.S. forces and Shiite mililtiamen in east Baghdad.
At least 110 journalists and 40 media support staffers have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, according to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. More than 80 percent of media deaths have been Iraqis.
In other developments:
Meanwhile, Iraqi leaders insisted they were making military and political progress, defending their efforts after the Bush administration's spotty report card on a series of benchmarks aimed at bringing stability to the war-torn nation.
A top adviser to Prime Minister al-Maliki rankled at the assessment, saying Bush supporters and opponents in Washington "will both blame Iraqis" for the shortcomings.
Sami al-Askari said the government was serious in its commitment to passing a series of political reforms aimed at bringing national unity and drawing greater Sunni Arab support for the political process. "From now until the end of the year, draft laws related to national reconciliation will be finished," al-Askari told U.S.-funded Alhurra television late Thursday.
But the reforms have been held up for months by political wrangling between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish members of al-Maliki's coalition. Sunnis and Kurds have deep differences over a draft law to equitably share control of the oil industry and its profits — one of the centerpiece reforms — and no compromise is in sight.
The even tougher benchmark of amending the constitution — which many Sunni Arabs see as the most important of the reforms — remains on the back burner, relegated to a parliament committee. Sunnis want to water down the constitution's provisions on federalism, but Kurds and Shiites want only limited changes.
At the same time, al-Maliki's administration has been severely weakened by a Sunni Arab boycott of his Cabinet and parliament over separate political disputes. Talks to overcome the walkout — and negotiations over forming a new, more streamlined Cabinet — have so far brought no results.
President Jalal Talabani said there were "positive developments on the political level," particularly in the effort to reshape the Cabinet to establish "a front of moderate forces committed to the political process and democracy in Iraq."
He also said the military offensives being waged by U.S. troops in and around Baghdad were making progress. "A successful campaign is on to eliminate terrorists and so far large areas of Diyala and Anbar have been cleared," Talabani said Thursday evening, referring to provinces north and west of the capital.