Khalid W. Hassan, 23, an interpreter and reporter in the Baghdad bureau of The New York Times, was shot and killed today, the bureau chief, John F. Burns, reported. He was the second Iraqi employee of the Times to be killed during the current conflict.
Mr. Hassan was shot in the Saidiya district of south central Baghdad while driving to work under circumstances that remain unclear, Mr. Burns said. He had called the bureau earlier and said his normal route to the office had been blocked by a security checkpoint.
“I’m trying to find another way,” he told the bureau staff.
About a half an hour later he called his mother, with whom he lived, telling her, “I’ve been shot.”
His family later called the bureau to report that he had been killed.
Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, issued this statement: “Khalid was part of a large, sometimes unsung, community of Iraqi news-gatherers, translators and support staff, who take enormous risks every day to help us comprehend their country’s struggle and torment.
“Without them, Americans’ understanding of what is happening on the ground in Iraq would be much, much poorer. To The Times, Khalid was family, and his death is heartbreaking.”
Mr. Hassan was one of the longest-serving local members of the bureau, having joined in the fall of 2003. He was of Palestinian descent; his family had fled to Iraq after the conflict with Israel in 1948. He lived with his mother and four sisters, all under the age of 18.
Over 100 journalists, most of them Iraqis, have been killed since the 2003 invasion, the Committee to Protect Journalists has reported. The total prior to Mr. Hassan’s death was 109, including 87 Iraqi citizens and two Americans, according to the group’s Web site.
