Italian journalist held hostage in Iraq

Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who has been missing in Iraq since last week, has been kidnapped by militants, according to a video broadcast today on al-Jazeera television station. His driver was found dead at the weekend in Najaf and today an Islamist group said it had abducted an Italian in Iraq, giving Silvio Berlusconi 48 hours to announce it was pulling his troops out of the country.

Claire Cozens and agencies Tuesday August 24, 2004

The Arab news channel said it had received a statement from the group and a videotape of the hostage identifying himself and saying he was a 56-year-old Italian journalist. The tape also showed the man's passport.

He and two other journalists - Frenchmen George Malbrunot of Le Figaro and Christian Chesnot of Radio France International went missing on the road between Baghdad and Najaf last week.

All three journalists had been staying in the same hotel in Baghdad, and were travelling to Najaf to cover the standoff between the US military and the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Iraq has turned into one of the most dangerous war zones ever for journalists trying to cover the conflict with 48 reporters and media workers losing their lives since the war began last March, including two CNN staff members who died in January. More recently, CNN producer Tomas Etzler was badly injured near Fallujah.

British reporter James Brandon, 23, was seized from his hotel in Basra by a group of masked gunmen earlier this month. He was pistol-whipped and subjected to mock executions before Moqtada al-Sadr's militia intervened and secured his release.

Advertiser links 1-800-CHARITY - Vehicle Donation Program Donate your automobiles to the nationally acclaimed the...

800charitycars.org

Donate Car to Charity - We Handle It All It's fast and easy. Tax deductible for charity. Free pickup...

donate-a-car.org

Children International - Sponsor a Child For only $18 a month, you can make a difference in the life...

children.org The first journalist to lose his life was ITV's Terry Lloyd, who was caught in the US-Iraqi crossfire just days after war started. The remains of his Lebanese translator were found last June, but a third colleague, the French cameraman, Fred Nerac, is still listed as missing.

Earlier this year the managing director of CNN International, Chris Cramer, described the Iraq conflict as one of the bloodiest ever for the news media, with the chances of being killed if you were a journalist in Iraq between March and April last year being a hundred to one, compared with odds of one thousand to one if you were a soldier serving with the US military.

An Iraqi cameraman working for the German television station - ZDF - was killed on August 15 in Fallujah.

Mahmoud Hamid Abbas, 32, also worked as a producer and editor for the public television broadcaster. ZDF said in a statement that Abbas had called the station on August 15 to say he had filmed the bombardment of a house in Fallujah by US forces and that he would be returning to Baghdad. He called half an hour later to say an attack was under way before the phone line went dead.

US journalist Micah Garen, who was kidnapped last week, was released and was at the office of radical Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq's southern city of Nasiriyah, said a spokesman for Mr Sadr.

Al-Jazeera reported last Wednesday that a group calling itself the "Martyrs Squad" had threatened to kill Garen unless US forces withdrew from Najaf within 48 hours.

Aws al-Khafaji, head of Mr Sadr's office in Nassiriya, told al-Jazeera that the kidnappers had wanted to stop an offensive against Shia militiamen by US-Iraqi forces in the holy city of Najaf.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.