Iraq journalist murdered in Kirkuk

Gunmen killed the head of a local radio station in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, the latest in a string of such murders in the troubled country.

"Unidentified gunmen driving a white car assassinated Mohammed Thabet al-Obeidi," a Kirkuk police colonel told AFP, adding that the journalist was on his way to work in the city centre when he was shot.

The 38-year-old was in charge of a radio station called Baba Gurgur that broadcasts in Arabic, Kurdish and Turkmen, and also worked for the state-run Iraqi Media Network.

Obeidi's colleague from the state-run Iraqiya channel, Roji Anwar, confirmed the killing.

Ziad Ajili, from the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, said Obeidi's killing may be politically motivated, but did not elaborate.

Kirkuk is an ethnic tinderbox in an oil-rich region on the country's new political fault line. It is theoretically under the authority of the Baghdad government but is controlled by Kurdish forces.

Obeidi's death came a few days after another Iraqi journalist was found dead near Dohuk, in Iraq's northern autonomous region of Kurdistan.