Under fire Anbar journalists arming themselves

Journalist Yasin al-Fadhawi's recent brush with death has prompted him to look for a new home – and a gun.

As he was getting ready for work on May 30, Fadhawi received an early-morning call from his neighbour – a man he describes as “annoyingly curious” – warning him that danger was lurking.

“His voice was shaking as he told me over and over again, 'Don't go out, stay in your house and call the police. Two people put a strange object at the entrance to your house and ran away',” Fadhawi recalled.

Fadhawi rang the security forces, who spent more than an hour diffusing a two-kilogramme bomb the size of a football close to his front door. Police said that if it had gone off, the bomb would have killed Fadhawi and his family.

Fadhawi believes the incident was connected to his work: two days prior to the bomb scare, his magazine published his report on alleged government corruption involving tribal chiefs.

He credits his neighbour with saving his life but, fearing for his safety and that of his family, Fadhawi fled his home in Al-Khaldiya, a town in western Anbar province, and is shopping around for a gun.

He has submitted an application for a weapons license, but if it is not approved he said he will fork out up to a month's salary – 900 US dollars – for a gun on the black market.

Police in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, report that at least 43 journalists in the province have applied for gun licenses since April, amid an increasingly hostile climate for journalists.

Once a stronghold for Sunni insurgents and one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq, Anbar – now controlled by Iraqi forces – has been held up as an example of the government's ability to stabilise formerly volatile regions of the country.

But journalists in Anbar say their jobs continue to put them at grave risk. They no longer fear al-Qaeda and its affiliates – which hunted down journalists – but instead believe they are being targeted by political factions.

Particularly risky for journalists is exposing corruption or challenging political parties or the authorities.

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