Unidentified gunmen yesterday assassinated an Iraqi journalist who reported on the excesses of the United States troops who are engaged in a peace keeping mission in the Northern oil town of Kirkuk.
Mahmoud Hasib Kassab, an ethnic Turkmen who was the chief editor of a Turkmen language newspaper, was killed in front of his home, according to the police reports.
Kassab was the eighth journalist killed this month in Iraq, the worst month for Iraqi journalists this year. Reporters sans frontières has recorded 22 deaths of reporters in the country, making it the most dangerous place in the word for media workers.
The security situation in the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk has been deteriorating recently, with tensions running high amongst the Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Assyrian-Christians.
US forces are keen to prevent Kirkuk becoming another Baghdad, and have been accused of using heavy handed tactics to keep peace "at any cost".
But people in the region claim that the US is only interested in safeguarding the oil wealth of the region which accounts for 40% of Iraq's oil supply.
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