Newscaster kidnapped in Baghdad, director says

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Gunmen abducted a radio newscaster and his driver in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad on Saturday, the station's director said. Karim Manhal, a newscaster with Radio Dijla, and his driver were seized by four masked gunmen in the Jami'a neighborhood near the station's headquarters, director Karim Yousif said. A female staffer who was with them in the car was released, he said. The attack came more than three months after the Dec. 4 killing of Nabil Ibrahim al-Dulaimi, a 36-year-old Sunni news editor with the private station who was gunned down in his car on his way to work. Excluding Manhal's abduction, the Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 45 journalists had been kidnapped and 134 journalists and media support workers killed since the US-led invasion in March 2003.