Salih Saif Aldin
There have been 119 journalists killed in Iraq since the war started. Covering the Iraq War is the most dangerous assignment in the world for a reporter. Most of the time they are accompanied by security guards when they are sent into violent neighborhoods to cover a story. The security guards weren’t able to save Salih Saif Aldin. On October 14 Saif Aldin was shot in the head trying to cover sectarian violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in the Saydiya neighborhood of Bagdad. From the Committee to Protect Journalists article:
“Saif Aldin, who wrote under the pseudonym Salih Dehema for security purposes, began his journalism career as a reporter for the weekly Al-Iraq al-Yawm in Tikrit, and joined The Post in January 2004 as a stringer, the newspaper said. Saif Aldin has been arrested, beaten, and threatened while carrying out his assignments.
Washington Post Baghdad Bureau Chief Sudarsan Raghavan told CPJ that it remained murky as to who shot Saif Aldin and why. Some residents suspect that the Iraqi army, some of whose members are loyal to the Mahdi Army, a militia led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is responsible for the slaying, The Post reported. Iraqi police suspect Sunni gunmen from the Awakening Council, a group consisting of Sunni tribes working alongside U.S. forces, The Post said.”
Click here to read the full article.
These journalists are sent into peril when they go into these unstable areas to cover stories, unarmed except for maybe a laptop, tape recorder, pen and paper - whatever. It’s pretty heroic to put yourself out there when you have no control of the situation, putting your life in the hands of others.
There have been 5 more Iraqi journalist deaths reported since Salih Saif Aldin was killed on the 14th.
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What a shame that the Iraq war continues no matter how many are losing their lives. Journalists as well as our service people as well as civilians and no one can do anything about it. At one time we thought it would eventually end but now it looks as though it is forever. No one in our administration seems to be aware.
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[…] Dlyan wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptsalih_aldin.gif Salih Saif Aldin. There have been 119 journalists killed in Iraq since the war started. Covering the Iraq War is the most dangerous assignment in the world for a reporter. Most of the time they are accompanied by … […]