Iraqi group claims journalist's murder

Dubai: An Iraqi militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing of an Iraqi journalist who it said "distorted the reputation of the mujahideen".

Sahar Al Haideri, a mother of three, worked for the independent Aswat Al Iraq news agency in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where gunmen killed her on Thursday.

"The brothers rained her with bullets from their machine guns, killing her instantaneously," the Ansar Al Sunna group said in a statement posted on the internet.

Aswat Al Iraq said Haideri's name had been on the "death list" of the Islamic State of Iraq, an Al Qaida-led militant group.

Ansar Al Sunna, another Islamist group waging a campaign against the US-led forces, said militants took Haideri's mobile phone and read contact number of police officers.

New York-based media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists said the gunmen who murdered her had answered her mobile phone and told the caller "she went to hell".