14 October 2007
Salih Saif Aldin
Shooting
A reporter for the Washington Post was fatally shot while on assignment in Iraq, the newspaper wrote on its website.
The Post said that reporter Salih Saif Aldin, 32, who had been reporting on clashes between militiamen and insurgents in Baghdad's Sadiyah community, was the first reporter for the newspaper to be killed during the Iraq war. The daily wrote that he died after being shot in the forehead Sunday, apparently at close range, while taking photographs on a street in the notoriously dangerous neighborhood.
Sudarsan Raghavan, the Post's Baghdad bureau chief hailed Salih's "courageoud" reporting in Iraq. "Courageous beyond imagination, Salih was determined to unveil the truth," Raghavan said. "He was instrumental to The Post's coverage of Iraq. He will be sorely missed by his friends and colleagues." The Post said Salih began work for the paper in early 2004 as a stringer in his hometown of Tikrit, and later moved to Baghdad, where he repeatedly braved the city's most dangerous neighborhoods during his reporting.
