JUNE 8, 2006
Posted: June 22, 2006
Muhammad Bader al-Deen al-Bideiri, Al-Masar
ATTACKED
Around 9 p.m., a group of armed men ransacked the offices of a leading daily in Mosul, Al-Masar, and repeatedly stabbed the deputy editor Muhammad Bader al-Deen al-Bideiri.
Al-Bideiri, who lives in an apartment in the newspaper’s building, was beaten, a plastic bag was placed over his head, and he was stabbed, editor-in-chief Haifa al-Husseini said. Al-Bideiri, required 15 stitches to his neck, and was in critical condition.
The attackers, who identified themselves as members of the Badr Brigades, a Shiite militia affiliated with Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told the editor that the attack was a lesson to him because of his critical writings about the group.
Al-Bideiri had written a front-page story three days earlier claiming that the insurgents had pretended to be employees of the Ministry of Higher Education in order to obtain personal information about professors and teachers. They used the information to select murder victims.
The gunmen took documents from the newspaper’s offices, then destroyed equipment, leaving the paper without a single working computer, Al-Husseini said.