A recent but undated photo of killed US journalist Steven Vincent dressed in Arab garb taken in the southern city of Basra, 500kms from Baghdad. Vincent, who had been in Basra for the past two months, was killed after he was snatched yesterday evening along with his female translator, police and the US embassy in Baghdad said. The Iraqi translator was also shot twice but she survived.(AFP/File)
US journalist shot in Iraq feared rise of religious extremists
Wed Aug 3, 2:41 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) - US journalist Steve Vincent, who has been killed in Iraq, was a staunch supporter of the war but a fierce critic of the United States and Britain over what he saw as the growing influence of religious extremists, especially in the Iraqi security forces.
A freelance journalist, Vincent's work was regularly published on the Internet and he also contributed articles to the New York Times, the US magazines the Christian Science Monitor and the National Review.
He was found shot dead in Basra, where he had been staying for several months to research a book on the history of the the southern port city.
In a commentary piece published in the New York Times on Sunday and titled "Switched Off in Basra," Vincent offered a scathing critique of British policy in Basra for failing to address what he saw as efforts by Shiite organisations to take control of the city.
British troops are responsible for security in southern Iraq, including Basra.
Vincent wrote that Shiite parties and clerics were populating the local police with their supporters who had "dual loyalties to mosque and state" and were enforcing religious social policies -- like dress codes -- on fearful residents.
"Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, (the British) avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination," he said. "In my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society."
Vincent's previous experience had been as an investigative reporter and art critic in New York City, where he had lived for 25 years.
Following the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, which he witnessed from the roof of his East Village apartment, and the start of the Iraq war, Vincent decided to travel to Baghdad.
Two trips in the fall of 2003 and the spring of 2004 resulted in a book: "In the Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq."
Despite the volatile security situation, Vincent spurned the security guards employed by most reporters travelling in Iraq and was known to often take taxis to interviews with his translator, Noor al-Khal.
Khal, who was kidnapped in Basra along with Vincent on Tuesday evening, was also found shot and seriously wounded.
Vincent writings expressed his support for the Iraq war as part of a broader struggle against religious extremism, but they also reflected disappointment what he saw as the failure of the occupying forces to foster genuine democracy in the country.
"Not for the first time, I felt I was living in a Graham Greene novel," he wrote in his Weblog in July.
"This about about a US soldier -- call it The Naive American -- who finds what works so well in Power Point presentations has unpredictable results when applied to realities of Iraq," he said.
Journalists who had recently met with Vincent in Basra said he had almost finished research on his second book and was thinking of taking a break in New York before returning to cover national elections in Iraq scheduled for December.