Sabri, 26, a cameraman for the Biladi satellite channel, was among several journalists filming pilgrims traveling southwest from Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, according to sources at the station. Iraqi security forces had set up checkpoints to safeguard the way for the pilgrims. Sabri and other journalists were traveling in a convoy with Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta al-Mussawi, Iraqi spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, who was reviewing the checkpoints.
Sources at the station told CPJ that an explosives-laden car appeared from a side road in the Al-Saydiya neighborhood of Baghdad’s Al-Rasheed district and fired at the convoy. The car accelerated, hit the last vehicle in the convoy, and blew up. Sabri and the others in the vehicle were killed in the blast, the sources said. The U.S. military said 12 Iraqi soldiers were killed, according to The Associated Press.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq was suspected of carrying out the attack since it controlled the Al-Rasheed district, a hotbed of violence. Sabri had worked for six months at Biladi, an independent channel with a pro-government editorial line established by former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.