Baghdad TV correspondent murdered-US media group

NEW YORK, Sep 19 (Reuters) A television correspondent in Iraq was shot and killed as he chatted with friends outside a mosque after prayers, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said.

The committee condemned the murder of Ahmed Riyadh al-Karbouli, 25, who worked for Baghdad TV -- a satellite channel owned by the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party -- and was shot by six men in two cars in Ramadi, west of Baghdad yesterday.

''Journalists in Ramadi report under intolerable conditions without any protection to tell the world what is happening in this hotbed of the Iraqi insurgency,'' CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said.

The committee said al-Karbouli had received numerous death threat from insurgents over the past four months warning him to leave Baghdad TV.

Baghdad TV has lost three other employees since June 2005 -- two of whom were killed by US forces in crossfire. In all, 80 journalists and 28 media support workers have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

REUTERS PDS BST0636