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Knight-Ridder Baghdad correspondent Hannah Allam reports on the killing of her colleague Yasser Salihee last Friday:
Here's more on the life of one of those who was killed less anonymously than many of the thousands of other Iraqi civilians killed in the cross-fire of the insurgency.Yasser Salihee was killed on his day off. The irony is breathtaking, if you knew Yasser and the risks he took to gather scraps of truth in a place filled with deceit and danger. Yasser worked as an Iraqi correspondent for Knight Ridder, relentlessly pursuing stories that put him in harm's way because he wanted to show American readers the realities of life in a war zone.
His curiosity took him across Iraq. He interviewed an insurgent leader at a clandestine meeting in Baghdad. He braved the road through the "Triangle of Death" to cover the aftermath of a battle in Najaf. He kept his cool in Fallujah as he convinced rebels with grenade launchers that we were "just journalists."
But Yasser, 30, wasn't just a journalist. He was also a husband and father, and last Friday he was shot and killed on the way to get gas to drive his family to the swimming pool. The U.S. Army is investigating Yasser's death; it appears that an American sniper fired the shot that flew through his windshield, pierced his skull and ended a life that was bursting with promise. There's no reason to think that the shooting had anything to do with his reporting work.
We know that at least 1,700 American troops have died so far in this war. However, for two years and counting, the U.S. military has refused to release statistics on civilians killed in the Iraq war. They die anonymously, every day, at checkpoints and in raids and in suicide attacks. They are crushed when bombs fall on their homes; they are caught in crossfires between insurgents and American troops. Like Yasser, they die on lovely summer days, while looking forward to splashing in the pool, enjoying some rare time off...