Unidentified gunmen murdered Shlash and his wife as they drove up to their home in Baghdad’s western neighborhood of Al-Aamariyeh, according to Abdullah al-Lamy, former head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate.
Al-Lamy, a friend of Shlash, said the journalist was a reporter for Rayat al-Arab, a newspaper associated with the Movement of Arab Nationalists. Shlash often wrote critically about the U.S. occupation of Iraq and called on Iraqis to set religious and political differences aside and unite for a free Iraq. He received several death threats to stop practicing journalism or leave Iraq, al-Lamy told CPJ. Al-Aamariyah neighborhood is an insurgency stronghold where journalists are often targeted, CPJ research shows.