Gunmen riding in an Opel without a license plate intercepted a vehicle carrying Raad Mutashar, 43, owner and director of a media company, and driver al-Obaid on a road southwest of Kirkuk at around 2 p.m., a company source told CPJ. The source said the gunmen killed Mutashar and al-Obaid, along with passengers Nibras Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid and Aqil Abdul-Qadir.
Mutashar’s company, Al-Raad, published a weekly newspaper, Al-Iraq Ghadan, and a related institute operated a news agency and a media educational center. A CPJ source said Mutashar was a prominent writer, poet, and journalist who started the company four years earlier. Imad Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid and Nibras Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaid were Mutashar’s brothers-in-law.