Kurdish reporter killed in Mosul blast

Mosul, June 19 (IANS/AKI) Kurdish journalist Bakhtiyar Haddad died and three French colleagues were injured when a bomb exploded in Mosul's Old City during an offensive by Iraqi forces to retake last district of the city held by the Islamic State jihadist group, local media reported on Monday.

Haddad, who working with the French team as a fixer and interpreter, was killed in the blast, one of his friends told Rudaw, the Kurdish broadcaster said on its website.

The French journalists, work for France 2 TV, the Kurdistan24.net newsite reported. Two were in a critical condition after the blast and were receiving treatment at a US base in the town of Qayyara in Nineveh Province, Kudistan 24.net said.

Haddad was the third journalist killed in a conflict zone in Iraq this year, Rudaw reported.

About 230 civilians have been killed in western Mosul in the past two weeks, the United Nations says, some in air strikes and rocket attacks, and others shot dead by IS snipers as they tried to flee.

Iraqi forces retook the eastern part of Mosul in January and began their offensive to re-take the densely populated Old City on Sunday amid fierce resistance from IS militants.

--IANS/AKI

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