Brussels, 3 November

Fifty-seven news media personnel -- journalists and critical support staff -- have now died and one is missing in the 19-month-old conflict, according to records kept by the International News Safety Institute.

Two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunot, remain in captivity since being taken hostage two months ago.

Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, newscaster on Al-Sharqiya channel and presenter of the Sahafah (press) programme, was killed by gunmen who opened fire on a taxi in which she was riding on Wednesday. Three others in the vehicle, including her unidentified translator, also died in the hail of bullets.

Abdul-Razzaq was the widowed mother of a six-year-old boy and month-old baby girl. Her husband was slain by unknown gunmen two months ago. There was no known motive for either killing.

An Iraqi cameraman for Reuters, Dhia Najim, was shot dead near his home in the Iraqi City of Ramadi on Monday.

The U.S. military said he died in a gun battle between Marines and insurgents. But video footage of the incident showed no fighting and no sounds of shooting. Najim's colleagues and family said they believed he had been shot by a U.S. sniper. Reuters urged the U.S. military to conduct a proper investigation.

In addition, a car bomb blasted the offices of Al Arabiya television in Baghdad, killing two guards, two kitchen workers and an administrator.

That attack and a threat by Islamic militants to slaughter journalists have raised fears that reporters have become direct targets in a country already rife with peril.

A group that claimed the weekend bombing, the Brigades of Holy War Martyrs in Iraq, said it was just a warning for journalists and worse could follow.

Journalists, including writers, camera operators, photographers and producers, have suffered the most heavily among news media personnel in Iraq with 42 dead and one missing. Fifteen support staff, mainly drivers and translators without whom international journalists would not be able to work properly, have also died. Thirty-three Iraqis have died, far more than any other nationality. The death toll also comprises news media workers from Algeria, Argentine (2), Australia (2), Britain (3), Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan (2), Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine (2), Poland, Spain (2), Ukraine and the United States (3).

According to INSI's records, 28 were killed by terrorists or other irregular gunmen, 10 by US forces and two by Iraqi troops. Two, plus one missing, were victims of US and Iraqi crossfire and seven were killed by gunfire of undetermined origin. Eight died in accidents or from health-related reasons.

(Methods of counting media casualties in conflicts can vary. INSI, being concerned with all aspects of safety in conflicts, records the deaths of every member of a working news team -- correspondents and camera operators, staff or freelance, producers, fixers and other critical support staff such as drivers and translators -- and counts all causes of death, whether bullet or bomb, accidental or health-related).

Paul Moran, ABC Australia
Australian freelance cameraman Paul Moran, 39, died instantly in a suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint in Sayed Sadiq in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq near the Iranian border. He was the last of a group of journalists travelling through the checkpoint which had been seized by Kurdish opposition fighters 24 hours earlier. ABC correspondent Eric Campbell was wounded.

31 March 2003
Gaby Rado, ITN
Gaby Rado, foreign affairs correspondent for Britain's ITN, was found dead in the car park of his hotel in Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq after apparently falling from the roof.

2 April 2003
Kaveh Golestan, BBC
Kaveh Golestan, an Iranian freelance cameraman on assignment for the BBC, was killed in northern Iraq when he stepped on a land mine after getting out of his car.

3 April 2003
Michael Kelly, Atlantic Monthly
Michael Kelly, Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large and Washington Post columnist, was killed in a Humvee accident while travelling with the US Army's 3d Infantry Division. His death was the first among the 600 journalists participating in the Pentagon's embedding programme.

6 April 2003
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, BBC
An Iraqi Kurdish translator working for BBC in Northern Iraq died after being hit by an American bomb.

David Bloom, NBC
NBC News crrespondent David Bloom died of a pulmonary embolism while travelling with the US 3d Infantry Division south of Baghdad.

7 April 2003
Christian Liebig, Focus Magazine
Julio Anguita Parrado, El Mundo
German Christian Liebig of the weekly magazine Focus and Spaniard Julio Anguita Parrado of the newspaper El Mundo, died in an Iraqi missile attack south of Baghdad along with two US soldiers.

8 April 2003
Tareq Ayyoub, Al Jazeera
Al-Jazeera journalist Tareq Ayyoub from Jordan was killed when the network's office on the bank of the Tigris River was hit by US fire.

Jose Couso, Telecinco
Taras Protsyuk, Reuters
Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman working for Reuters, and Jose Couso, a Spanish Telecinco cameraman, were killed by US tank fire on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, which was used as a base by the foreign media.

14 April 2003
Mario Podesta, America TV
Argentine freelance journalist Mario Podesta died in a car crash near Baghdad. He was travelling in a convoy of press vehicles some 80 km (50 miles) from the capital.

15 April 2003
Veronica Cabrera, America TV
Veronica Cabrera, a freelance camerawoman from Argentina, died of injuries after the same accident

9 May 2003
Elizabeth Neuffer, Boston Globe
Waleed Khalifa Hassan Al Dulaimi, Boston Globe
Elizabeth Neuffer, an award-winning reporter for The Boston Globe, was killed when the car in which she was travelling hit a highway barrier near the town of Samarra, about half way between Tikrit and Baghdad. Her Iraqi translator, Waleed Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulami, also died.

5 July 2003
Richard Wild, Freelance
The British journalist was gunned down by an unknown assailant in a Baghdad street.

6 July 2003
Jeremy Little, NBC
Australian sound recordist Jeremy Little died of wounds sustained in a rocket attack. He was embedded with US forces.

17 August 2003
Mazen Dana, Reuters
Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana was shot by a US soldier in a tank while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison outside Baghdad.

28 October 2003
Ahmed Shawkat, Bilah Ittijah
Shawkat, editor of the weekly Bilah Ittijah (Without Direction), was shot and killed by one or more gunmen at his office in Mosul.

27 January 2004
Duraid Isa Mohammed, CNN
Yasser Khatab, CNN
Translator and producer Duraid Isa Mohammed and driver Yasser Khatab, both Iraqi, were ambushed and died of multiple gunshot wounds as they were returning to Baghdad in a two-car convoy from an assignment in the southern city of Hillah.

1 February 2004
Safir Nader, Qulan TV
Abdel Sattar Abdel Karim, Al Ta'akhy Ayoub Mohamed, Kurdistan TV
Haymin Mohamed Salih, Qulan TV
Gharib Mohamed Salih, Kurdistan TV
Semko Karim Mohyideen, Freelance
Two suicide bombers blew up almost simultaneously at the party offices of KDP & PUK in Arbil, killing seven working journalists, all Iraqi Kurds.

5 March 2004
Selwan Abdelghani Medhi Al-Niemi, VOA
An Iraqi translator working for the Voice of America [VOA], and two members of his family, were shot and killed in Baghdad by unknown assailants. The translator, Selwan Abdelghani Medhi al-Niemi, was attacked as he was returning home in his car. His mother and daughter, ho were travelling in the car with him, were also killed.

18 March 2004
Nadia Nasrat, Diyala TV
Majid Rachid, Diyala TV
Mohamad Ahmad, Diyala TV
Gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying staff of a Coalition forces-funded television station at Baquba, 60 km north of Baghdad. One journalist and two staff members were killed.

Ali Abdel Aziz, Al-Arabiya
Cameraman Ali Abdul Aziz was shot dead and correspondent Ali al-Khatib was wounded when a team from Al-Arabiya went to cover an attack on the Burj al-Hayat hotel in Baghdad and US forces who had cordoned off the area opened fire.

19 March 2004
Ali Al-Khatib, Al-Arabiya
Ali al-Khatib died from his wounds in a hospital in Baghdad.

26 March 2004
Burhan Mohammed Mazhour, ABC News
Freelance cameraman Burhan Mohammed Mazhour, an Iraqi citizen, died of bullet wounds sustained during heavy fighting in Fallujah. It was unclear who killed him.

Omar Kamal, Time Magazine
Omar Kamal, An Iraqi translator working for the U.S.-based newsweekly Time died after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds in Baghdad two days earlier. The circumstances of the shooting were unclear.

9 April 2004
Assad Kadhim, Al-Iraqiya TV
Hussein Saleh, Al-Iraqiya TV
Al-Iraqiya TV Correspondent Asaad Kadhim and driver Hussein Saleh were killed when American troops opened fire on the road to Samara.

7 May 2004
Waldemar Milewicz, Poland TV
Mounyr Beouamrani, Poland TV
A Polish and an Algerian journalist, both working for Poland's TVP television, were shot dead by gunmen at Latafiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, where several deadly ambushes had taken place.

20 May 2004
Hamid Rashid Wali, Al-Jazeera
An Iraqi technician from Al-Jazeera television, Hamid Rashid Wali, was shot dead in Kerbala, during clashes between the US Army and Shiite militia of Moqtada al-Sadr.

27 May 2004
Shinsuke Hashida, Freelance
Kotaro Ogawa, Freelance
Mohamed Najmedin
Two Japanese freelance journalists and their translator were killed when their vehicle was fired on near Baghdad.

28 May 2004
Samia Abdeljabar, Al-Sabah Al-Jedid
Samia Abdeljabar, a driver for Ismael Zayer, editor-in-chief of the Baghdad independent Arabic-language al-Sabah al-Jedid newspaper, and his wife Anneke van Ammelroy, who writes for the Dutch weekly De Groene Amsterdammer, was abducted and killed after a failed attempt to kidnap the journalists.

3 June 2004
Sahar Saad Eddin Nuami, Al-Mizan, Al-Khaima, Al-Hayat Al-Gadida Nuami, editor-in-chief of "Al-Mizan", "Al-Khaima" and "Al-Hayat al-Gadida" was killed instantly when a grenade was thrown at his car by unknown assailants in Kirkuk.

15 August 2004
Mahmoud Hamid Abbas, ZDF, EBU
An Iraqi editor/producer for ZDF, Mahmoud Hamid Abbas, was killed outside Fallujah. He was believed to have been heading back to Baghdad to report on US air strikes on the city. The circumstances of his death were not immediately clear.

Hossam Ali, Freelance Photographer
An Iraqi freelance photographer was found dead in a morgue in Fallujah. The circumstances of his death were not immediately clear.

21 August 2004
Ghareeb (full name not yet known)
The driver/translator of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni was found dead. Baldoni was kidnapped and held hostage on threat of execution unless Italy pulled its forces out of Iraq.

26 August 2004
Enzo Baldoni, Diario
Militants in Iraq announced they had killed abducted Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, 56, of the Milan weekly magazine Diario, according to Al-Jazeera, which said it had footage of his body. A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said it had killed Baldoni after Italy refused to withdraw its troops. Italy's prime minister described the reported killing as an "act of barbarity".

13 September 2004
Mazen Al-Tomaizi, Al Arabiya
A US helicopter fired on people who had gathered around a Bradley fighting vehicle that had been set ablaze in Baghdad's Al-Haifa district. Mazen was doing his piece to camera when he was cut down. Reuters cameraman Seif Fouad was filming the scene and was wounded. "I didn't imagine the helicopter would fire on the crowd," he told Arab News from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from shrapnel wounds. I ... saw a helicopter at very low altitude. Just moments later I saw a flash of light from the Apache. Then a strong explosion."

14 October 2004
Dina Mohammed Hassan, Al Hurriya
A female Iraqi television journalist was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad. Dina Mohammed Hassan, who was working for Kurdish-run Al-Hurriya TV, was shot by three assailants in an Opel car around 8:00 am.

15 October 2004
Karam Hussein, European Press
An Iraqi photographer working for the European Press photo Agency was shot dead by gunmen outside his home in the northern city of Mosul. Karam Hussein, 22, who formerly contributed photos to The Associated Press, was leaving his home when a group of unidentified gunmen opened fire with semiautomatic weapons. The motive for the killing was unclear.

27 October 2004
Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, Al-Sharqiya Translator (name not yet known)
Gunmen killed Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, an Iraqi news reader, on her way home from work at al-Sharqiya television in Baghdad. Abdul-Razzaq was a popular presenter who had previously worked for Iraqi state television. The journalist had a 6-year old boy and a month-old baby girl. She was killed two months after her husband was murdered. There was no known motive for the killing.

1 November 2004
Dhia Najim, Reuters
Dhia Najim, freelance cameramen for Reuters, was shot dead near his home in the Iraqi City of Ramadi. The U.S. military said he died in a gun battle between Marines and insurgents. But video footage of the incident showed no apparent fighting and no sounds of shooting in the vicinity before Najim was killed by a single bullet. Najim's colleagues and family said they believed he had been shot by a U.S. sniper. Reuters urged the U.S. military to conduct a proper investigation. Najim, born in 1957, leaves a widow, three daughters and a son.

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