NASIRIYAH, Iraq, Aug 16 (AFP) - An American journalist was kidnapped Saturday in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah while he was reporting on archaeological sites in the area, the city's deputy governor Adnan al-Sharifi told AFP Monday.
"The journalist Micah Garen was walking in the market in the town centre when he was kidnapped by unknown men," Sharifi said.
Garen is the founder and head of Four Corners Media, a company specialising in film, photo and written documentaries with offices in New York and Colorado, according to its website.
The head of archaeological services in Nasiriyah, Abdul Amir al-Hamdani, said Garen had been living for the past few days in a hotel in the city, 375 kilometres (235 miles), south of Baghdad while preparing a project to protect archaeological sites in the area.
Hamdani said he had fallen foul of Italian troops in the area after accusing them of killing civilians, including a pregnant woman, in a clash 10 days before with Shiite militia.
"He took photographs of an ambulance which had been machine-gunned ... and sent them to the government in Rome, saying that the Italian forces had killed a family and not terrorists," he added.
As a result, the Italians had banned him from their base and he had moved into the city, Hamdani said.
Websites show Garen to have been active in Iraq for several months, producing work focussing on the threat to archaeological sites since the fall of Saddam Hussein but also covering other current events.
He is also linked to the Four Corners Strategy Group, which provides technology and management consulting services to non-profit and non-governmental organisations.