Elsewhere in Baghdad, a funeral was held Thursday for the head of Iraq’s largest journalism organization slain in an apparent targeted attack. Seventy-four-year-old Shihab al-Tamimi died this week from gunshot wounds. He was an independent journalist, known as an outspoken opponent of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. An Iraqi journalist attending the funeral said Iraq’s journalists are increasingly being targeted.

Hussein Al-Miah: “We send our condolences to all the Iraqi journalists with this serious event that journalists have been inflicted with. Shihab al-Tamimi will not be the last martyr, as the Iraqi journalist became target for (insurgents).”

More than 170 journalists and support workers have been killed in Iraq since the US invasion of 2003.