British Journalist Killed in Baghdad

A British journalist was shot and killed Saturday outside the Iraq Museum, witnesses and a U.S. military spokesman said.

The identity of the journalist, a freelance television producer, was not immediately released.

“We believe the man is someone who has previously worked for ITN, including during the Iraq war, but he was not employed by us out there at this time. He was freelancing,” a spokeswoman for Britain’s ITN television news said on condition of anonymity.

The network declined to name the man, saying his next of kin had not been informed.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said earlier that the body of a British journalist working for ITN television was “presented to coalition forces in Baghdad who took it to hospital.”

Ambushes, shootings and other attacks, blamed on loyalists of ousted President Saddam Hussein, have plagued American and British soldiers in Iraq in recent weeks -- but so far there has been no sign of journalists being explicitly targeted. An American soldier guarding the museum was shot and killed by a sniper Thursday.

The British Foreign Office contacted in London confirmed that a man had been shot but said details were still sketchy.

“We are urgently investigating reports of a British freelance journalist being shot today in Baghdad,” a spokesman said.

The Foreign Office was trying to identify the body of a man thought to be in his mid-20s. The death brings to 16 the number of journalists killed in Iraq since the start of the war March 20.