(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-17 17:04

BAGHDAD -- Unknown gunmen kidnapped an Iraqi television reporter in central Baghdad on Friday, his satellite channel said on Saturday.

"Muntadhar al-Zeidi, a reporter working for the al-Baghdadiyah satellite channel, was kidnapped by unidentified armed men in the Bab al-Sharqi neighborhood while heading to his work," the channel said without providing more details.

The channel has appealed to the victim's kidnappers to release 28-year-old al-Zeidi.

Before al-Zeidi, two reporters from the channel, which broadcasts from Cairo in Egypt, had been killed in the violence- ridden country.

The most recent killing of a Baghdadiyah reporter occurred in September when gunmen shot dead Jawad Sa'doun al-Daami in western Baghdad.

Some 236 Iraqi newsmen have been killed in Iraq since the US- led invasion in 2003, according to the count by Baghdad-based Iraqi Journalists' Union.

The Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters without Borders, has described the dangers that face journalists in Iraq since the outbreak of the Iraq war as the highest for the media since World War II.