Hakar Saed, director and studio manager for IMN-TV in Mosul, stands in the station's studio on Thursday. Saed was once kidnapped and threatened with beheading for being a journalist. "They held a knife to my throat," Saed said. "But this is my job. I don't know anything else."
Photo: Tony Overman/The Olympian

FOB Marez, Mosul __ Being an Iraqi journalist is a good way to get yourself killed.

Tony and I yesterday visited the Iraqi Media Network television station in Mosul. One of its employees had just been assassinated by insurgents.

This is not unusual at the station. It presents a lot of government programming, including a “Most Wanted” program, which shows the faces and rap sheets of insurgents wanted by the government.

The IMN-TV station will soon add a new satellite station to carry their message of free press to the rest of the Middle East and Europe. "The first show will say 'We are here and we are not going away'," said station manager Ghazi Faisel, who keeps two AK-47 machine guns in his office for protection from terrorists who oppose the station. Photo: Tony Overman/The Olympian

Employees live at the station for their safety. Station head Ghazi Faisel has a bed and two AK-47’s propped up against the wall of his office.

A platoon of Fort Lewis soldiers used to guard the station. But now the area is part of an Iraqi army base. Still, station employees must leave sometimes. The man who was murdered this week had gone out to buy bread.

I met the studio director, Hakar Said, who was kidnapped by insurgents two years ago in Tal Afar.

“They were going to cut my head off,” he said. “They showed me the knife.”

He got away only because the insurgents panicked when a large U.S. patrol came nearby.

The station is about to go satellite, so it can be seen throughout the Middle East and Europe.

“The first (satellite) show will say, ‘we are here and we are not going away,”’ Faisel said.

The station is important to the Fort Lewis soldiers here. They say it’s the best way for people in Mosul to hear about construction projects and see their local government at work.

-- Sean Cockerham

LEFT: Hakar Saed, director and studio manager for IMN-TV in Mosul, jogs up the stairway of the station's dilapidated building on Thursday. Saed was once kidnapped and threatened with beheading for being a journalist. "They held a knife to my throat," Saed said. "But this is my job. I don't know anything else."
RIGHT: Ghazi Faisel talks on the phone in his station manager office for IMN-TV, where he keeps two AK-47 machine guns for protection from terrosists who threaten and have killed his reporters. Faesel is excited about a new satellite station he is adding that will reach all of the Middle East and Europe. "The first show will say 'We are here and we are not going away'," Faesal said. Photos: Tony Overman/The Olympian