Iraq group claims journalist assassination - Web

DUBAI, June 10 (Reuters) An Iraqi militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing of an Iraqi journalist who it said ''distorted the reputation of the mujahideen''.

Sahar al-Haideri, a mother of three, worked for the independent Aswat al-Iraq news agency in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where gunmen killed her on Thursday.

''When she arrived at the area of the ambush the brothers rained her with bullets from their machine guns killing her instantaneously,'' the Ansar al-Sunna group said in a statement posted on the Internet.

Aswat al-Iraq said Haideri's name had been on a ''death list'' of journalists issued by the local leader of the al Qaeda-led militant group, Islamic State in Iraq.

Ansar al-Sunna is not directly affiliated with al Qaeda, but both Islamist groups are waging a violent campaign against US-led and government forces.

''The brothers took her mobile telephone ... it had numbers of police (officers) and pictures of policemen, which confirmed to us that she was an agent for the apostate police and the government of apostate (Prime Minister Nouri) al-Maliki,'' Ansar al-Sunna added in the statement.

New York-based media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the gunmen who murdered her had answered her mobile telephone afterwards and told the caller ''she went to hell''.

Journalists have been dying in record numbers in Iraq, with at least 12 killed in May, the highest monthly total since the start of the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, according to media watchdogs.

CPJ said Haideri had worked with the media group, which helped relocate her husband and family to Syria after recent threats.

The group said at least 106 journalists, including Haidari, and 39 media support staff had been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Reuters SG VV1235