Gunmen riding in an Opel without a license plate intercepted a vehicle carrying Mutashar, 43, owner and director of a media company, on a road southwest of Kirkuk at around 2 p.m., a company source told CPJ. The source said the gunmen shot Mutashar, driver Imad Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid, and passengers Nibras Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid and Aqil Abdul-Qadir. The Associated Press first reported the attack.
Mutashar’s company, Al-Raad, published a weekly newspaper, Al-Iraq Ghadan, and a related institute operated a news agency and a media education center. A CPJ source said Mutashar was a prominent writer, poet, and journalist who started the company four years earlier.
The CPJ source said Mutashar’s son was kidnapped more than a year previous but was released after a ransom was paid. The kidnappers told Mutashar that his journalistic work had prompted the abduction, the source said.
Imad Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid and Nibras Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid were Mutashar’s brothers-in-law.