A New York Timesreporter was found dead in the southern Iraqi city of Basra today after being kidnapped by masked men, family members and a doctor said.
Fakher Haider, an Iraqi, who had worked for the Timesfor 2 1/2 years, was found with his hands bound and a single bullet wound to the head, a doctor in the forensic department of Basra's hospital said.
Employees of the New York Timesin Baghdad said they could not confirm Mr Haider's death but said they were enquiring into reports that he had been kidnapped and killed.
Mr Haider's brother said in Basra that four masked men in a dark Toyota vehicle had arrived at the family home in an apartment complex in central Basra after midnight last night.
They said they were from the intelligence services and that they needed to speak to Mr Haider in connection with an investigation, the brother said.
They bundled him into their vehicle and told his wife and family not to interfere. The reporter's body was found several hours later in a deserted area on the outskirts of the city.
Mr Haider is the second journalist to be kidnapped and killed in Basra in the past two months.
Steven Vincent, an American freelance reporter who was writing a book about the city and who had written an opinion piece for the New York Times criticising the Basra security forces, was kidnapped and found shot dead in August. His female translator was abducted with him and also shot several times but survived and is recovering in hospital.
Iraqi reporters in Basra, a predominantly Shia city, say local security forces are increasingly under the control of militias loyal to two competing Shia political groups.
The dominant force is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a pro-Iranian political party that is influential in the government and has a large militia known as the Badr Organisation or Badr Brigade.
It competes with the Mehdi Army, a nationalist militia loyal to young Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers also have a strong presence in the police force in Basra, Iraq's second largest, and have clashed recently with Badr followers.