Iraqi sports journalist killed in northern Iraq

An Iraqi sports broadcaster was killed by a bomb attached to his car in northern Iraq, while two other journalists were wounded in a similar blast in Baghdad, officials said. The attacks underscored the continued dangers to Iraqi journalists who frequently have been targeted or caught up in the violence plaguing the country. Alaa Abdul-Wahab, a 37-year-old reporter for the Cairo-based independent Baghdadiya TV station, was killed and two other journalists wounded Sunday when the bomb exploded as he got into his Opel car in the northern city of Mosul, according to police. The station confirmed the death. The journalists, who had just finished lunch, were planning to do a story on the local Olympic committee, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information. The head of the Iraqi Journalists' Union, Mouyyad al-Lami condemned the attack and called upon the Iraqi government to step up protection for journalists. "The government should present concrete measures to protect Iraqi journalists who suffered today another loss," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview. In a second attack, two journalists, a cameraman and sound engineer with Iraqi state TV, were wounded when a bomb attached to their car exploded in northern Baghdad. They had just finished filming a story in the mainly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah when the blast took place, police said. Media watchdog groups have said Iraq remains the deadliest place for journalists to work despite a decline in violence. At least 138 other journalists have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Seventy-five were killed in Baghdad province, while 23 died in Ninevah, of which Mosul is the capital, CPJ said. So-called sticky bombs have become an increasingly popular mode of attack in Iraq. In November, an American journalist for National Public Radio and three Iraqi colleagues escaped injury when a bomb attached to their car exploded as it was parked along a street in west Baghdad.