Italian Journalist Snatched in Baghdad

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=716&e=14&u=/nm/20050204/ts_nm/iraq_dc

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"Gunmen kidnapped an Italian journalist in Baghdad Friday, the latest in a series of brazen abductions but the first since Iraq's election.

Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with Rome daily Il Manifesto, was snatched from the street as she conducted interviews near Baghdad University, police sources and diplomats said.

Gunmen pulled up alongside her vehicle, forced her driver and an Iraqi journalist with her out of the vehicle at gunpoint and then drove off with Sgrena, the sources said.

The kidnapping comes just five days after Iraq held an historic election and amid some evidence of a decline in militant attacks since the vote, when millions of Iraqis faced down insurgent threats to cast their ballots."

As an aside I think some of the gutiest reporting I've seen are being done by the female journalists.

Unfortunately I think too many journalists are hiding behind the walls of the Green Zone.

This kind of thing doesn't help any of us trying to get truthful info out of Iraq.