Freelance journalist Stephen Vincent was found dead from multiple gunshots in Basra, Iraq. He had been abducted at gunpoint several hours earlier.
"I can confirm to you that officials in Basra have recovered the body of journalist Steven Vincent," said embassy spokesman Pete Mitchell. "The U.S. Embassy is working with British military and local Iraqi officials in Basra to determine who is responsible for the death of this journalist. Our condolences go out to the family."
Iraqi police in Basra said Vincent was abducted along with his female translator at gunpoint Tuesday evening. The translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded.
Vincent and the translator were seized Tuesday afternoon by five gunmen in a police car as they left a currency exchange shop, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.
Vincent, author of In The Red Zone, recently wrote an article for the New York Times in which he reported that Basra's police force had been infiltrated by Shiite political groups, including supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr.
Vincent quoted an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant as saying that some police were behind many of the assassinations of former Baath Party members that have taken place in Basra.
"He told me that there is even a sort of "death car" — a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment," he wrote.
Vincent was also critical of the British military, which is responsible for security in Basra, for turning a blind eye to abuses of power by Shiite extremists in the city.
From Vincent's July 31 story:
From another view, however, security sector reform is failing the very people it is intended to serve: average Iraqis who simply want to go about their lives. As has been widely reported of late, Basran politics (and everyday life) is increasingly coming under the control of Shiite religious groups, from the relatively mainstream Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to the bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
[...]
"No one trusts the police," one Iraqi journalist told me. "If our new ayatollahs snap their fingers, thousands of police will jump." Mufeed al-Mushashaee, the leader of a liberal political organization called the Shabanea Rebellion, told me that he felt that "the entire force should be dissolved and replaced with people educated in human rights and democracy."
Unfortunately, this is precisely what the British aren't doing. Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations.
From the New York Times his morning:
Mr. Vincent was particularly incensed about the sharp divide between men and women in the Islamic world, and about the increasingly religious mores in Basra that forced women to wear full-length black robes in public. He said he fully supported the Iraq war, believing it was part of a much larger campaign being waged by the United States against "Islamo-fascism." But Mr. Vincent said he was also disappointed by the failure of the United States and Great Britain to enforce their visions of democracy here in Iraq, instead allowing religious politicians to seize power across the south.
Conservative Shiite parties have strengthened their hold on Basra since the January elections. They include the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was founded in Iran and wields enormous power in Baghdad, and the Fadilah Party, started by Ayatollah Muhammad Yacoubi, a hard-line cleric. The organization of Moktada al-Sadr, the young cleric who has led two rebellions against the Americans, also has great influence in Basra.
Vincent was the first American Journalist killed in Iraq, according to the Times. Others have died in accidents or due to illnesses. Mr Vincent did not travel with guards and had angered police and religious groups with his reporting from Basra. He was getting ready to return to his home in Manhattan after the expected approval of the new Iraqi constitution on August 15.
Mr Vincent joins at least 45 journalists and 20 support personnel who have been killed in Iraq since March 2003.
Mr Vincent's website is here.
UPDATE: Computer problems kept me off for most of the day. But I wanted to link to Kathryn Jean Lopez' eulogy in NRO:
Vincent was a brave man who wanted to tell the truth, despite the deadly risks. That is noble, important work. We would not know about the good that men and women do — courageous Iraqis, Americans, and other members of the Coalition in this case — without good men like Steven Vincent willing to find out about it in the first place, on frontlines crawling with evildoers. And although evil cannot tolerate being outted, freedom and justice rely on it.
Michael Kelly was a huge loss for those interested in Iraq without the spin. Stephen Vincent will be missed for exactly the same reasons. We will miss his strong words and his well-crafted spirit.
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