Deadly car-bomb attack on Al-Arabiya’s Baghdad bureau

A car-bomb explosion seriously damaged satellite TV news station Al-Arabiya’s bureau in the central Baghdad district of Harithya today, with an initial toll of three dead, 16 injured and one person missing. The explosion followed a series of threats of attacks on Al-Arabiya by terrorist networks. “It is unacceptable that journalists are the target of acts of such barbarity,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge to the authorities to do what is necessary to guarantee the safety of journalists at a time of violence in which they could be singled out.” Al-Arabiya had temporarily shut down the bureau on 25 June following an interior ministry communiqué warning that insurgents groups had threatened to carry out bombings. Opened in 2003, the station’s Baghdad bureau has been hit by terrorist attacks in the past. Bureau chief Jawad Hattab narrowly escaped the bomb that was set off underneath his car in September 2008. A car bomb targeted at the bureau killed seven people and wounded 20 others in October 2006. Several Al-Arabiya journalists have been injured or killed in targeted attacks. Atwar Bahjat and two colleagues were killed near the northern city of Samarra in February 2006. Jawad Kazem was injured in an attempted abduction in June 2006. Based in Dubai, Al-Arabiya is financed by Saudi and Gulf capital. Its Baghdad bureau was closed down for a month in September 2006 on the Iraqi government’s orders. Accused by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki of inciting sectarianism and violence, Al-Arabiya was banned from covering a vote on a law on provincial autonomy to which the Sunni Arab minority was opposed.