Reports of the demise of the Kawwaz family were premature.
The Western media was abuzz over the past few days over an Iraqi journalist's accusations that his extended family of in Baghdad was executed by a death squad. "Dia al-Kawwaz, editor of Internet website Shabeqat Akhbar al-Iraq (Network of Iraqi News), said militiamen sprayed his relatives with bullets after storming into his house on Sunday," AFP reported earlier this week. Various international human rights and journalist organizations jumped to Kawwaz's defense. But the Iraqi government denied the claims, and stated it has spoken to members of the local police and even the family, all eleven of whom denied the accusations.
Today, Gateway Pundit provided visual evidence that the family was indeed alive. Kawwaz's family appeared on Iraqi television, smiling and waving.
The international media is quick to jump at claims such as this, without providing a critical eye on the sources. The media should have looked at who was behind this. AFP has it right in their report:
Several Iraqi officials, including Sunni MPs Saleh al-Mutlaq and Hussein al-Falluji, attended the service along with hardline cleric Hareth al-Dari, the head of Iraq's Sunni Muslim Scholars Association who lives in Amman.
Hareth al-Dari and the Association of Muslim Scholars openly support the insurgency and covertly support al Qaeda. Saleh al-Mutlaq is notorious for his support of the insurgency, and U.S. forces have raided his offices in the past. Mutlaq purportedly approached the CIA to mount a coup against the Iraqi government earlier this year.
In my first hand experience, the media is far to willing to print stories based on bad sources. When I was embedded with the Canadian Army in Kandahar in June of 2006, a Taliban stringer fed a wire service the false news that two Canadian soldiers had been kidnapped. The Canadian reporters, with the exception of two, were all too eager to go to press. The leak was timed to hit Canada just in time for the evening news.
Two other reporters and I attempted to dissuade the reporters from going to press, stating that this was highly likely a Taliban information operation, and the army would do a head count and know in an hour or two. The reporters printed due to pressure form their editors, and hours later the story was confirmed as false.
Update: Dia al-Kawwaz recants. Blames it all on the Maliki government.
