[2] Bahjat began her career working as a reporter in the culture department at Iraqi Satellite Television during the rule of Saddam Hussein.
One of the attackers shouted, "We want the correspondent" and the two began immediately firing on the journalists who fled as they were being shot at with heavy gunfire.
[7][8] The victims' families, who retrieved the bodies from Samarra and interviewed the sole survivor and local police, say the government's account is contradicted by eyewitnesses and medical reports, they state categorically that Atwar was not raped, and say the tragedy is being politicized to further divide Iraq.
[9] On 7 May 2006, the British Sunday Times published an article by Hala Jaber, in which she describes watching a video of Bahjat being stripped of her clothing and beheaded.
[11] In 2009, Yasser al-Takhi was captured along with his brothers and forced to make a videotape confession to Bahjat's rape and murder which was then broadcast on Iraqi Television.
[14] Megan K. Stack's Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War, a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction, has a section devoted to Bahjat.