BAGHDAD (Reuters):

Gunmen stormed a television station in Baghdad yesterday and shot dead 11 staff in the biggest attack yet on media in Iraq.

Iraqi media organisations, funded by religious or political groups, are frequent targets for militant groups as attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents and sectarian death squads continue to convulse the country, killing an estimated 100 people a day.

Shaabiya satellite channel, owned by a small secular political party, has not yet begun broadcasting. Its executive manager, Hassan Kamil, stressed it had no political agenda and that the staff had been a mix of Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurds.

Four-wheel drive vehicles

Kamil said gunmen driving at least five four-wheel drive vehicles raided the station's office in eastern Zayouna district at 7 a.m., killing guards, technicians and administrative staff.

"Some of them were wearing police uniforms and others civilian clothing. All were masked," he told Reuters.

Kamil said the staff had been staying overnight in the station. Most were shot as they lay sleeping in their beds, while one was shot in the bathroom. Only two employees survived the attack, one of whom was severely wounded, he said.

A Reuters reporter saw blood spattered on furniture and on the floor in the station's reception area.

Shaabiya is owned by the National Justice and Progress Party, which contested the last elections but failed to win any seats.

The party's leader, Abdul-Rahim al-Nasrallah, also head of the station's board of directors, was among the dead.

"This came very suddenly. We had not had any threats previously," Kamil said, when asked why he thought the station, which has so far only done test broadcasts of patriotic songs, had been attacked.

"It's a horrible reminder of why this remains the most dangerous assignment in the world right now for journalists, especially local reporters," Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement yesterday.