Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq    

    BAGHDAD, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered Sunday an investigation into the killing of four Iraqi TV crew members in the city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province.

    In a statement issued by his office, Maliki ordered the Iraqi security forces in Nineveh province to form a committee to investigate the brutal crime against the crew of Sharqiya channel.

    "We offer our condolences to the families of the martyrs and to the Sharqiya channel at this painful time," Maliki said.

    He condemned all attacks that target the Iraqi media which violate the rights and freedom of journalists.

    "This crime will not prevent our security forces from imposing the law and security in Nineveh province and all other Iraqi provinces," he added.

    Late on Saturday, Brig. Khalid Abdul-Sattar, spokesman of Nineveh's operation office told reporters that his security forces arrested five suspects in Mosul believed to be involved in the crime.

    On Saturday, unknown gunmen kidnapped the four media workers in Zanjili neighborhood and shot them dead in a nearby area in Mosul.

    The victims were Musab al-Azzawi, chief bureau of Sharqiya in Mosul, cameramen Ahmed Salim and Ihab Maad along with their driver Qaidar Suleiman.

    The crew members were part of larger Sharqiya crew who were working on a popular program Futourkum Alena (Your Dinner is on Us).

    The program is one of the most-watched by Iraqis during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. TV crew usually visit families and share an Iftar meal to break the dawn-to-dusk fast. At the end of the program the channel give gifts to the hosts.

    Al-Sharqiya, or "The Eastern," is Iraq's first independently owned satellite channel. The network was launched in May 2004 by London-based Iraqi media tycoon Saad al-Bazzaz, who is best-known as the founder of Al-Azzaman newspaper.

    Statistics of the Iraqi Union of Journalists show that about 280 of its members and media workers have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

    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 bloodiest for the media since World War II.