Baghdad diary: Journalists as targets

By Andrew North BBC News, Baghdad

Namir Noor-Eldeen "was a brother before he was a colleague" and "a very generous man who gave away a lot of his belongings to friends".

Iraqi journalists' syndicate pay tribute to murdered journalists

Just 22 years old, he was "our favourite little brother with a big heart and a great talent".

Saeed Chmagh, 40, "was a man of principles and high values, the peacemaker of the office".

He was a "very humble and polite gentleman", who supported both his immediate family and three others through his work.

Khalid Hassan was "the prankster of our office and a constant source of good humour. There is a terrible void here now".

He was only 23 but he had become the head of his family and was supporting his mother and his four sisters.

A fourth Iraqi man, whose name his family do not want published, was "always polite and cheerful" and "very precise".

At university, where he studied English and translation, he was usually top of his class. He was 32 and married with two daughters - three months and eight years old.

These are some of the things friends and colleagues said about four Iraqi men who were among the latest victims of the war late last week.

In the line of duty

Two of them, Namir and Saeed, were killed by the US military during what it says was a battle with insurgents.

The prankster of our office and a constant source of good humour Friends and colleagues of Khalid Hassan, shot dead by gunmen

Khalid and the fourth man were shot dead by unknown gunmen.

What these four men had in common is that they all worked for the media.

Namir was a photographer and Saeed a driver for the Reuters news agency.

The unnamed man also worked for Reuters as a translator. Khalid Hassan had been working as a reporter for the New York Times since 2003.

It is now estimated that at least 190 media workers have been killed in Iraq since the invasion.

Journalists are usually wary of writing too much about casualties among our own, even here in the most dangerous conflict ever for the media.

For obvious reasons - we are not the story and terrible though these figures are, they are just a scratch compared to the overall bloodshed in Iraq.

These latest deaths have hit Baghdad's close media community hard though, coming so close together.

Reuters especially so - seven of their staff have now been killed here since 2003.

But the nature of these deaths - and their lives beforehand - also reveals much about this conflict.

Their stories are also about what it is like to be an Iraqi in the midst of Baghdad's terrifyingly unpredictable violence and how difficult it is to find out what has happened in the dozens of incidents each day.

Last Friday at 0845, Khalid rang the New York Times office to say he was running late, said bureau chief John Burns.

"He said he was trying to find an alternative route in because his usual one was blocked, possibly by a military operation."

"Half an hour later, he rang his mother to say he had been shot."

She then contacted the paper's office and staff later found him dead, near a petrol station about three kilometres from his home.

"There were many people around," said Mr Burns, "but no one admitted seeing anything."

Sectarian minefield

The New York Times is still investigating, but one possibility is that he was killed for sectarian reasons. He was a Sunni of Palestinian origin.

Every day, as for so many Baghdad residents, his journey into work meant negotiating a sectarian minefield, where the threat often only becomes clear when it is too late - perhaps the wrong ID card is shown.

MEDIA DEATHS SINCE 2003 Total number of deaths: 110 Iraqis: 88. Other nationalities: 22 Men: 100. Women: 10 Murder: 71. Crossfire or other acts of war: 39 Source: Committee to Protect Journalists A dangerous profession

Khalid also had the added fear that his work for a foreign organisation would be discovered.

Just a few months ago, Khalid and his family had a narrow escape when their apartment was virtually destroyed by a car bomb set off nearby. They had to move home.

Reuters says its translator - and his two brothers who died with him - appear to have been killed for religious reasons, another of the "dozens of executions carried out every day in Baghdad by sectarian death squads that roam the city", the agency said.

Namir and Saeed were doing their job last Thursday, trying to report on the kind of incident that is typical in Baghdad as the Americans continue their drive to retake city neighbourhoods from insurgents and militias.

The US military said its troops were carrying out a planned raid when they came under fire in the capital's New Baghdad district. They called in support from Apache helicopter gunships.

"Nine insurgents were killed in the ensuing fire fight," it said in a statement. "One insurgent was wounded and two civilians were killed during the fire fight. The two civilians were reported as employees for the Reuters news service."

It is known they were injured after the Apaches opened fire, but it is still not clear exactly how the two men died.

Some will say Namir and Saeed took too great a risk by going there. But easy to say with hindsight.

All journalists covering conflicts have a list of close-shaves they know they are lucky to be able to talk about.

The point about all these cases though is how random and unpredictable the violence is, coming from so many quarters, and how little people can do to protect themselves.

The other night, a family of seven were killed by a mortar that landed on the roof where they were asleep.

The reason they were there is because of the still disastrous electricity supplies. No power for air conditioners. The roof was the coolest place.

Caught in the crossfire

Then there are random shootings, roadside bombs and the threat from the massive, indiscriminate car bombs launched by al-Qaeda.

The US military argues the violence it employs is discriminating

And there is the threat of being mistakenly killed by the Americans. The Americans argue that the violence they employ is discriminating and targeted.

But it can only be as discriminating as the quality of the information they have about their target.

Once a pilot in a helicopter gunship or a gunner in a Humvee has decided to open fire, those at the receiving end do not stand a chance.

On the streets of Baghdad, you can see just how scared Iraqis are of US troops every day, by the way drivers skid to the side of the road like frightened rabbits whenever they see an American patrol approaching.

Allegations of US forces wrongly killing civilians are common. Certainly they are played up at times by some militia and insurgent groups for their own ends.

But it is equally certain that many of these allegations are never properly investigated, or simply forgotten, buried under the next set of grim statistics.

The different ways in which these four men died have become all too familiar.

Because they worked for the media, these statistics have been given temporary faces, which shine a little more light on Iraq's horrors.

But the message is clear. Life here is cheap.

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Previous Baghdad diaries:

Technology at war

On another planet

The 'what to do' debate

The morning after

Looking for options

Delayed, 16 years