Military

U.S. Military Releases Reuters Journalist After 7 Months

22 January 2006 -- The U.S. military have freed an Iraqi journalist that it had been holding since June.

Samir Mohammed Noor is a freelance cameraman for the British media group Reuters from the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar.

His release comes a week after the U.S. military released two other Iraqi journalists working for Reuters. Cameraman Ali al-Mashhadani was held for five months and reporter Majed Hameed for four months. Both came from the western city of Al-Ramadi.

Reuters says all three were held without charge.

Meanwhile, an unnamed Iraqi police spokesman said on 22 January that four children of a policeman and their uncle died overnight when insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at their home in Balad Ruz.

Reports also say at least three policemen were killed by a roadside bomb in Al-Baquba.

The U.S. military reported overnight that two of its soldiers were killed by a car bomb during combat operations on 20 January in Al-Haqlaniyah, which lies on the Euphrates River, west of the capital Baghdad.

(Reuters, AP, dpa)

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