Iraqis report the news at their peril

BAGHDAD, May 11 (Reuters) Iraqi cameraman Sameer Jabbar will never forget the feel of the pistol pressed against his head last month or the words of one of his two kidnappers.

'''Let's just kill him anyway''', he recounted the gun-wielding kidnapper saying, after Jabbar's local television station had paid around 30,000 dollars in ransom for his release.

Jabbar does not know why, but the other kidnapper said he should live, and he was freed.

Jabbar's experience he was snatched in Baghdad while covering a story and held for 36 hours is just one of the scores of anecdotes that illustrate why Iraq is the most dangerous country in the world for reporters.

The Vienna-based International Press Institute said in April that 46 journalists were killed last year in Iraq, of whom 44 were Iraqis. Overall, more than 100 journalists, 80 of them Iraqi, have been killed in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003.

Foreign journalists live and work in fortified compounds. Iraqis working for local media, especially outside Baghdad, don't have that protection.

''Everyone hates journalists -- the government, the militants and the Americans,'' Jabbar, 53, told Reuters.

Yesterday, two Iraqi journalists, a clerk for their media firm and their driver were dragged from their car, tortured and then shot dead by gunmen near the northern city of Kirkuk.

A week ago, militants blew up the independent Radio Dijla station in Baghdad, destroying the offices but causing no casualties. That came a day after heavily armed men had killed one person and wounded two at the station.

Journalists are attacked by death squads and insurgents intent on silencing their voices, media watch groups say.

''Everybody in this world knows Iraq is the riskiest place for journalists, but what is unknown is the scale of the risk,'' the Journalistic Freedom Observatory, an Iraqi non-governmental organisation, says on its website.

It said acts of aggression against Iraqi reporters came from virtually every direction gunmen, militias, foreign soldiers and government security forces.

PRESS ID Abu Ali, a newspaper journalist in the Shi'ite militia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, said he was scared to cover events in Sunni areas.

''I'm afraid of writing some stories if I think I will be killed because of it,'' he said.

Kawther Abdul-Ameer recalls being in a minibus last year when militants stopped the vehicle and separated passengers into men and women.

''I was terrified. All I thought about was how could I get rid of my press identification,'' said Abdul-Ameer, who now freelances for Reuters.

''We were later released and when I returned home, I was too afraid to leave for two weeks. I went to Amman to look for work but when I couldn't find a job I came back.'' Foreign journalists have suffered too.

On Sunday, a Russian freelance photographer was killed in a bomb attack north of Baghdad while on patrol with U.S. forces.

Two Iraqi journalists working for Reuters have been killed by US soldiers since the US-led invasion in 2003. Two foreigners, a Palestinian and a Ukrainian, have also been killed by American troops. The US military has said its soldiers acted lawfully.

Cameraman Jabbar said he would not give up his job despite the risks.

''All Iraqis face death on a daily basis, especially journalists. When I leave home each morning, I don't know if I will make it back alive,'' he said.

''But I will never leave this profession even if it costs me my life.'' Reuters AGL RS0857