A pregnant Yemeni journalist and former TV host has been killed along with nine others in a car explosion in the capital Sanaa, according to the Yemen branch of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
AbdulWahhab Ali, 34, was delivering a greeting to supporters of the Popular Resistance Committees, an armed group closely aligned with the Yemeni government, when the explosion went off, AP reported.
Yemeni officials are blaming the explosive blast on the Houthi rebels.
Also killed in the explosion were the popular committees’ officials, two journalists and one civilian, including two children.
The Popular Resistance Committees consists of more than 60 rebel groups and militias.
AbdulWahhab was the founder of the TV station Nafala, which the popular committees control. He was also founder of Al-Masboum TV and Al-Shaima TV. He also led the news bureau of the Popular Resistance Committees’ political and media unit.
“He was a brave voice that raised the bar for Arab media professionals in many ways,” said Dan Frishberg, a Middle East program coordinator at CPJ. “He was a great supporter of independent journalism in a region where his colleagues risk life and limb simply to write the truth.”
Pregnant journalist AbdulWahhab Ali killed in car bomb explosion in #Yemen. Who killed her and why? https://t.co/bKRB4twMrn pic.twitter.com/rV3sYNzrZH — Free Press Journal (@FreePress_Journal) November 15, 2018
According to CPJ, Ali was threatened repeatedly while covering a government counterinsurgency operation in 2014. He escaped an assassination attempt in 2015 and was kidnapped in 2016.
Last year, CPJ noted that U.S. journalists reporting from conflict areas faced risks. Yemini journalists fled their home when an airstrike fell on their compound.