Posted on 06/30/2007 6:23:15 PM PDT by Lorianne
We do not know why Sahar went that last time to Mosul. But we do know why she was killed. A democrat, a journalist and a woman -- it's a lethal combination in Iraq.
Sahar Hussein Ali al-Haydari, 44, was fearless in writing about attempts by extremists to establish an Iraqi Islamic emirate based around her home town of Mosul. She was harsh on efforts to foment sectarian conflict: The last article we received was a Romeo and Juliet tale of a girl stoned to death for converting from Yezidism (a Kurdish sect) to Islam because she fell in love with a Muslim boy. She wrote, too, about restrictions placed on women by religiously driven insurgents.
"Murder has long become a daily companion for the inhabitants of this northern city," she noted last fall after several female teachers at Mosul schools were assassinated.
As a result of these efforts, Sahar was on an al-Qaeda target list, and she was afraid. She had been afraid for a long time, in fact, and with reason: Last year she was shot and wounded, and several times she escaped abduction. Some months ago, she moved her husband and four children to Damascus, where we were able to offer her a new job, and she seemed happy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Sahar Hussein Ali al-Haydari, age 44, was a correspondent for the national Iraqi press agency NINA and the independent agency Aswat al-Iraq. She contributed to a number of other media and also taught journalism, notably for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London.
That is truly sad.
RIP
This is the Iraqi dilemma: Stay and work to build a new country, and you may die; or depart and save yourself, and the result can be the death of Iraq by a thousand departures.
Perhaps we should "kill Iraq". Divide it into 3 or more regions, and secure only those who want us there and want a secular, individual-rights-respecting government.
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