N.Y. Times journalist is killed in Baghdad

Gunmen killed an Iraqi journalist with the New York Times as he drove to work Friday, the third staffer of a Western news organization to be killed in the last two days.

Khalid W. Hassan , 23, was the second New York Times employee killed in the Iraq conflict. In 2005, a stringer for the paper, Fakher Haider, was slain in the southern city of Basra.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 110 journalists and 40 media support staffers have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The New York Times said the circumstances of the attack remained unclear. Hassan was driving to work when he called the bureau to say his normal route was blocked by a security checkpoint and he was taking a different path.

Less than an hour later, he was attacked in the Sadiya district of southwest Baghdad.

Hassan, who had worked for the paper for four years, was able to call his mother, telling her, “I’ve been shot.” His family called the bureau and reported he had been killed, the paper said.

On Tuesday, an Iraqi photographer and driver working for the Reuters news agency were killed during a battle in east Baghdad between U.S. forces and Shiite militiamen, during which a U.S. helicopter fired at targets on the ground and insurgents used mortars and automatic weapons.

Nearly 85% of the journalists killed since the war began have been Iraqis, said the Committee to Protect Journalists.