Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, July 17 (Xinhua) - An Iraqi journalist and a photographer in the volatile province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, were kidnapped by a group of gunmen on Sunday, an Iraqi media watchdog said on Tuesday.

    "Hassan Flaiyeh al-Shimmary, correspondent of local al-Diyar television and Adam Khalil, a photographer of the U.S. Associated Press Agency, were kidnapped in the province," the Journalistic Freedom Observatory (JFO) said in a statement.

    Armed men intercepted the car of the two media workers while they were leaving the town of Buhruz near Diyala, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, and dragged them out of their car before fleeing the scene, the statement said citing a local police report.

    Diyala province, which stretches from Baghdad to the Iranian border to the east, was the hotbed of insurgency and sectarian violence.

    So far, more than 230 Iraqi media workers have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion broke out in 2003, according to the Iraqi Union of Journalists count.