Watchdogs Decry Media Killings in Iraq Jihadist Hub

The Islamic State group has abducted 48 media workers in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul since June 2014 and executed at least 13 of them, watchdogs said.

Since the jihadists took over Iraq's second city in June 2014, at least 60 journalists, citizen journalists and media workers have fled, according to a report published late Tuesday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The study, which described Mosul as a "death trap for journalists", was researched by RSF's partner organization in Iraq, the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory.

RSF said the IS group, for which Mosul is the largest hub, has not only hunted journalists down but also taken over the city's existing media infrastructure.

RSF's Middle East and Maghreb chief Alexandra El Khazen said IS in 2014 treated the "studios and equipment of local media outlets as the spoils of war, taking them over in order to pursue its information offensive."

The report said it was thanks to the technology seized from local TV studios that IS was able to shoot and broadcast the first, and to this date last, public appearance of its self-proclaimed "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in June last year.

It said it used the cameras of Sama Mosul TV, which was owned by former Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, to shoot the sermon.

The group also used existing media infrastructure to expand its powerful media machine by creating new channels such as Al-Bayan Radio and Dabiq TV.

Very little information has come out of Mosul other than the group's own propaganda.

Some of the 13 executed journalists' bodies were handed over to the families but in some other cases it took weeks or months to confirm the death.

Anyone with friends or relatives still in Mosul is afraid to talk, turning Mosul into what the report called an "information black hole".

The report included short biographies of the 13 executed journalists and said the fate of at least 10 journalists who are thought to still be held by IS remained unclear.

RSF urged Iraq, neighboring countries and major Western powers to grant better protection, work permits or asylum to journalists who have had to flee.