Gunmen kill nine in raid on Iraqi TV station

BAGHDAD: Unidentified gunmen killed nine people in a raid on an new independent Iraqi television station on Thursday, including its general manager, a senior employee of the channel said.        

"We came in this morning and we saw the massacre. All were killed. We think gunmen broke into the house and killed them," said a journalist from the Al-Shaabiya private satellite network, who asked not to be identified.      

Aside from the manager, Abdul-Rahim al-Nasrawi, eight more staff including an editor, a news reader and several clerks and security guards were killed in the attack on Al-Shaabiya's station in a converted house in east Baghdad.   

Iraqi security officials confirmed that there had been an attack.     

Nasrawi, a Shiite, was the leader of the Justice and Democratic Progress Party, a small and litle-known movement which stood in last year's election but without success. However his station describes itself as non-partisan.        

The main plank of the party's platform was a demand that a timetable be set for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.    

Al-Shaabiya is currently broadcasting only music and advertisements during a test period and was due to go on air with a full menu of programming in 10 days at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.          

No decision has yet beeen made on whether to go ahead with the launch.