Iraqi news agency loses third reporter in 2 weeks

BAGHDAD, June 14 (Reuters) A journalist working for the independent Aswat al-Iraq news agency was blown up by a roadside bomb in the volatile province of Diyala north of Baghdad, the third agency employee to be killed in the past two weeks.

The agency said in a statement that Aref Ali, 32, was killed while on assignment in Diyala, where violence has spiked as al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents battle US and Iraqi troops.

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.

Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world to report. The Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders says 182 journalists and media assistants have been killed since 2003.

''Far too many journalists are paying the ultimate price for reporting the Iraq story,'' the New York-based media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement.

Aswat al-Iraq said Ali was hit by a roadside bomb near the town of Khalis, north of Baghdad, on Monday.

His colleague, Sahar al-Haideri, was killed by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul on June 7. Her name had been on a ''death list'' issued by a local al Qaeda leader. A third journalist from the agency, Nazar al-Radhi, was shot dead on May 30.

REUTERS SV PM1510