Atwar Bahjat

Atwar Bahjat ( _ar. أطوار بهجت; 1976 – 22 February 2006) was an Iraqi journalist and reporter for al-Arabiya television who was abducted and brutally murdered while covering a story. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2168496,00.html] She had previously worked for al-Jazeera. In the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq War she became one of the most familiar faces on Arabic-language satellite television.

Background

Bahjat came from a religiously diverse background, having a Shi'a mother and a Sunni father. She was an observant Sunni Muslim.

Bahjat was abducted and killed in Samarra in the aftermath of the 22 February 2006 bomb attack that devastated the Al Askari Mosque. Her cameraman, Khaled Mahmoud Al Falahi (39) and a technician Adnan Khairallah (36) also were killed. A fourth member of the team managed to escape the ambush. Her team was surrounded by a crowd of civilians, but, according to the surviving crew member, two armed men fired shots in the air, dispersing the crowd. One of the armed men shouted, "We want the anchorwoman." Bahjat cried for help from the crowd but to no avail. Members of her news crew tried to dissuade the gunmen but they were captured and two of them were also killed.

On Saturday, February 25, her funeral procession was attacked twice, first by gunmen who opened fire on mourners and later by a roadside bomb that targeted the funeral cortege as it returned from the cemetery. At least three security personnel were killed in the attacks on her funeral and four people were injured. [http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/OLI540285.htm]

Bahjat was known for wearing an Iraqi map pendant necklace, and after Bahjat's death many Iraqi women have adopted similar necklaces in her memory.

In 2006, the Committee to Protect Journalists posthumously awarded a CPJ International Press Freedom Award to Bahjat.

The murder

Photographs distributed by the photo agency Getty Images shows what appears to be the bloody but intact body of Atwar Bahjat, fully clothed and still wearing her headscarf.

On May 7, 2006, "The Sunday Times" of Britain published an article written by Arab journalist Hala Jaber, in which she describes watching a camera phone video of a person being stripped of their clothing and beheaded. Jaber believed the person was Bahjat. It is believed by some that the video actually shows the murder of a Nepalese man by The Army of Ansar al-Sunna in August 2004. [http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/175675.php Report on video] The claim that the video shows Bahajt's death has been debunked by several key blogs. [http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/175675.php] [http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=20445_Atwar_Bahjat_Beheading_Video_a_Hoax&only] "The Sunday Times" retracted the story, saying it was the victim of a hoax, on May 28, 2006. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2200173,00.html]

Arrest of murder suspects

On March 18, 2006, Iraq's Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi announced the arrest of six men suspected of involvement in Atwar Bahjat's murder her two-person crew from Dubai. "The six terrorists who killed the Iraqi television crew will be put on public display today or tomorrow," Dulaimi declared on March 18, but no one was put on public display to date. They were arrested in the course of Operation Swarmer, a major operation involving both Iraqi forces and a brigade of the 101st Airborne division and north of Samarra, which was kicked off on March 16, 2006.

uspects' possible connection with Jill Carroll kidnappers

News reporter Jill Carroll overheard her kidnappers state that they were the ones who killed Ms. Bahjat. In part 8 of her story detailing her captivity, Carroll writes that one of her captors told her "We killed an Al Arabiya journalist. She said the mujahideen are bad." Carroll also wrote "It was unclear if he meant that he himself had participated in the killing or if it had been done by men from the larger group of mujahideen." [http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0823/p01s01d-woiq.html]

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4743050.stm Shock over Iraqi reporter's death] (BBC)
* [http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/23/journalists.killed/ Arab TV journalists killed in Iraq] (CNN)
* [http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=92151730&p=9zy5zyx4&n=92152201 Gunmen fire on funeral of Al-Arabiya newswoman] (Ireland On-Line)
* [http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/72569/ Press freedom groups condemn murders of Bahjat and her camera crew] - IFEX
* [http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060318/wl_afp/iraqusarrests_060318115804;_ylt=AmwIyd2MYRAmEVFIka_PWCkZO7gF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA-- AP account of alleged murderer's arrest during joint Iraqi-US military operations]
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2168496,00.html Part of me died when I saw this cruel killing] (Times Online)
* [http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/175675.php Report on Atwar Bahjat beheading video hoax]