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Iraqi TV Producer Kidnapped, Killed | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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BAGHDAD, Iraq, AP – A media watchdog organization has condemned the killing of an Iraqi television producer in northern Iraq.

Khalid al-Attar, who worked for al-Iraqiya television, was abducted from a Mosul neighborhood by unidentified gunmen and found shot to death Friday, the state-funded station said.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders on Friday said al-Attar”s death marked the ninth killing of a journalist in Mosul, Iraq”s third-largest city, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The organization called on Iraqi and U.S. authorities to investigate, saying Mosul has become &#34Iraq”s most dangerous city for the press after Baghdad.&#34

Al-Attar, 43, worked for a satirical program that poked fun of the government”s perceived carelessness and inability to deal with major issues in the country, including frequent water shortages and power cuts.

There have been 61 journalists killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Al-Attar was the fourth journalist to be killed in recent days. An Iraqi special correspondent working for Knight Ridder Newspapers was shot June 24 as he approached an U.S.-Iraqi military patrol. It appeared that a U.S. sniper shot him, but Iraqi soldiers in the area at the time also may have been shooting, the California-based newspaper company has said.