Baghdad, Nov 26, 2007 (VOI) – Unidentified gunmen killed eleven members of a family of an Iraqi journalist residing in Jordan, including his wife and children, in a raid on his house in the area of al-Shaab, eastern Baghdad, an Iraqi press watchdog said on Monday.

"About seven gunmen raided the house of Diaa al-Kawwaz, the editor-in-chief of the Shabakat Akhbar al-Iraq (Iraq News Network), during the early hours of Sunday, shot down eleven members of his family, including his wife and children, and escaped to an unknown place," Ibrahim al-Siraji, the head of the Iraqi Association to Protect Journalists, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

Shabakat Akhbar al-Iraq is a web site posting news reports about Iraq from the Jordanian capital Amman.

Siraji did not give further details about the incident but said the "association called Kawwaz in Amman and was in extreme sadness to give any comments."
Several international organizations concerned with journalists' affairs and human rights ranked Iraq as the most dangerous place for journalists and media people all over the world.

The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO), a non-governmental organization concerned with Iraqi journalists' affairs, said that 218 Iraqi and foreign journalists and media people, including 122 newspaper reporters, have been killed in Iraq since 2003 while 14 journalists others missing with no information about them yet.

AE