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Two ABC News journalists killed in Iraq | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Unknown assailants killed two ABC News broadcast journalists in Iraq in the latest attack on journalists in the war-torn country, the U.S. news organization said on Friday.

The men were identified as cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, 33, and soundman Saif Laith Yousuf, 26, ABC News said in a statement. Their deaths bring the total number of journalists killed in Iraq since 2003 to 104, according to a tally kept by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The two were returning home from work at the ABC News Baghdad bureau on Thursday when their car was attacked. The journalists, who were unaccounted for overnight, were confirmed dead Friday morning.

“Today, we’ve lost two family members, and it really hurts,” Terry McCarthy, ABC News’ Baghdad correspondent, said on news organization’s Web site. “We have Iraqi camera crews who very bravely go out … without them we are blind, we cannot see what’s going on.”

Aziz is survived by his wife, two daughters and mother, and Yousuf by his fiancee, mother and brothers and sisters, ABC said.