Salih Saif Aldin, 32, Shot Taking Photos
“A veteran Washington Post special correspondent was shot to death Sunday in southwest Baghdad while on assignment, the first reporter for the newspaper to be killed during the Iraq war,” Joshua Partlow and Amit R. Paley reported Sunday on the Washington Post Web site.
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Salih Saif Aldin |
“Salih Saif Aldin, 32, was reporting on the violence that has plagued Baghdad’s Sadiyah neighborhood Sunday afternoon when he was shot in the forehead. According to residents of the neighborhood and the Iraqi military officers at the scene, he was taking photographs on a street where several houses had been burned when he was killed. His wounds appeared to indicate he was shot at close range.
“. . . At least 118 journalists have been killed in Iraq while on duty, nearly 100 of them are Iraqis, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Foreign news organizations rely heavily on their Iraqi staff members to navigate the hazards of reporting here.
“Saif Aldin left The Post’s Baghdad bureau Sunday afternoon in a taxi to interview residents in Sadiyah about clashes between militiamen and insurgents. A Washington Post colleague received a telephone call just after 4 p.m. from a man who said he was a police officer and who was using Saif Aldin’s cell phone. The man said he was standing next to Saif Aldin’s body, which later was observed lying on the street, covered with newspapers.”
“‘Salih’s loss reminds us once again of the central role Iraqi journalists have played in coverage of the war and the immense sacrifices they have made to help us understand it,’ said David E. Hoffman, The Post’s assistant managing editor for foreign news. ‘We grieve at his death and that of all those Iraqi and other journalists who have died in the conflict, displaying courage in the pursuit of truth.'”
On its list of journalists who have been killed in Iraq, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that “Khalid W. Hassan, 23, a reporter and interpreter” at the New York Times, “was shot while driving to work in the south central Seiydia district on July 13, the newspaper reported. He had called the bureau to say that he was taking an alternative route because his usual way was blocked by a security checkpoint, the newspaper said. The Times reported that the journalist called his mother a half hour later to say, ‘I’ve been shot.’ The family notified the newspaper that Hassan later died.
“An Iraqi of Palestinian descent, Hassan had worked for the Times Baghdad bureau since fall 2003, the newspaper said.” He was apparently the last correspondent for a U.S. news organization killed in Iraq.
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Obama to Appear on Russ Parr, Tom Joyner Shows
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will appear on two syndicated African American radio shows this week, the Obama presidential campaign announced on Sunday.
Obama will interview with the ‘Russ Parr Morning Show’ on Monday at 8 a.m. Eastern time and the ‘Tom Joyner Morning Show’ on Tuesday at 9:15 Eastern, a news release said.
“The two interviews will address the campaignâ??s broad-base of excitement and support in the African American community, the campaignâ??s ’40 days of Faith’ tour currently taking place in South Carolina; his success of gathering over 150,000 friends on the social networking site BlackPlanet within a week of the profile going live, recently launching the ‘African Americans for Obama’ web page, and his continued commitment to make issues like his urban agenda a priority in his administration.”
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., was scheduled to talk with host Cathy Hughes about issues important to African Americans in a special episode of “TV One on One” on the TV One cable network on Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, that network announced.