Monday, December 17th, 2007
Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi
Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi, a correspondent for Alive in Baghdad, has been killed.
On Friday, December 14th at 11:30 PM Baghdad time, Iraqi National Guard forces launched a raid on the street where Ali lived in Sadr City. The ING convoy left at 3:00 AM Baghdad time. Somewhere in between 11:30 and 3:00, Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi was struck by 31 bullets. He died immediately.
Ali wasn’t the only casualty of the raid. One of his neighbors, Hussein, 26 years old, was also killed. Hussein’s brother and nephew are now missing.
Ali was killed two days before his 24th birthday. He was born December 16th 1984. He died December 14th 2007. Ali was the only surviving male in his family. His two brothers had been killed in the Firdos Square bombing in 2005. He is survived by his mother and sister, refugees in Syria.
I’ve known Brian, the man behind Alive in Baghdad, since the Firdos Square bombing. I first discovered Alive in Baghdad when Brian uploaded a video of the bombing to blip. I thought it was copyrighted material — and was about to delete it — when I realized that the video was actually original footage. I e-mailed Brian and we became friends. The news made me cry. I know how deeply Brian cares for his team, and how consistently worried he has been for their safety and security. I also know how important it is to Brian that the world see what life is like for Iraqis by way of coverage that flies in the face of network television’s “live from” model. Ali helped make it possible for us to see Iraq as what it was, not as what the Green Zone was.
Ali was someone who did God’s work — showing people around the world what life was actually like in Iraq for Iraqis. He showed us the reality of the Iraqi condition in his life, and he shows us the reality of the Iraqi condition in his death. Our entire office is in mourning, as is the entire Web video community. Please join us in donating some money to Ali’s family to help pay for a funeral. Please join us in remembering Ali, someone most of us barely knew but whose work touched thousands. Please join us in remembering all of the Iraqis who have perished over the course of the past few years. And please do not allow politics to enter into it.
on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 1:34 pm:
i’m very sad to hear that and my thoughts and prayers go out to his family. what an absolute nightmare and i am depressed to hear that. please keep us up on anymore details. john
on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 6:52 pm:
Very sad to hear this. Alive in Baghdad is such a shining example of what people can do. I’m sure that Ali was a big part of that. My thoughts are with his family
on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 6:45 pm:
This is really awful for the entire community.
I agree with his sister that Ali is a martyr. I’m going to have a friend look into this and spread the word for folks to make a donation via Paypal to smallworldnews (at) gmail.com. Thanks Mike for the post - I feel the same way. Ugh.