Reporter Remembers Dead Iraqi Friend

In a moving blog post just up tonight at NYT, Stephen Farrell--who was kidnapped last year--pays tribute to a fellow journo who died yesterday in the multiple Baghdad bombings. It focuses on reporting anecdotes and his bravery and personal memories, such as Farrell attending his brother's funeral. Excerpt:

We can’t print Yasser’s full name because he works — worked — for a Western news organization, and it would endanger the rest of his family. That is in itself a telling fact about the state of Iraq today, seven years after the invasion. No one outside Iraq save a handful of foreign correspondents and photographers knew him — a religious Shiite, a husband, a father and a devoted son. And one of the bravest, kindest people I ever met.

Yasser worked for The London Times for seven years - with me for four of them - and his family’s story in many ways parallels that of Baghdad.