Gunmen Storm Iraqi TV Station, Kill 11

A Sunni-Arab Shaabiya satellite television station employee comforts his colleague in front of the station's building in Baghdad, Thursday Oct. 12, 2006. An unknown number of gunmen pulled up at the station in seven cars, stormed quickly into the offices and opened fire killing eleven station's employees. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban) (Samir Mizban - AP)

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Gunmen, some of them in police uniforms, stormed the downtown Baghdad headquarters of a new satellite television station Thursday, killing the board chairman and 10 others in the second attack on an Iraqi station in the capital in as many weeks.

The motive for the attack was not clear, though there were signs it was carried out by Shiite militiamen. Sunnis say the militias often have help from police _ and in its few short broadcasts, the station played nationalist music against the U.S. occupation, perhaps prompting militiamen to assume it sympathized with Sunni insurgents.

Sunni insurgents are also said to sometimes disguise themselves as police when they carry out attacks. The station had a mixed staff, and the slain chairman was a Shiite who had been jailed under Saddam Hussein.

Journalists have frequently been targeted in both the insurgency and the spiral of sectarian killings in Iraq.

After the attack, blood stained the polished floors of the Shaabiya station building, which housed its studio and offices, and bullet casings lay scattered around.

The station was founded in July and was working around the clock to get ready to start broadcasting after the end of Ramadan in about two weeks, so a lot of people were in the office even though the attack came at 7 a.m., executive director Hassan Kamil said. He added that some of those killed had been sleeping.

Around two dozen gunmen, some in police uniforms, drove up to the building in six civilian cars, stormed in and "eliminated most of those present," he said.

Several employees managed to run away when the assault began, and there were two wounded survivors _ the program director and chief producer _ who were in the hospital in critical condition, Kamil said.

Kamil said he could not even speculate on who may have been behind the attack and said the station, which had so far made only a few test broadcasts, had received no threats.

"We have good relations with all political and religious parties and groups, with the Sunnis and the Shiites, and we are keen to maintain such a balance," he said in a telephone interview.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdel-Karim Khalaf blamed the attack on "a gang of criminals" and said investigations were underway to determine who was behind it.

Kamil said that even though there was evidence some 100 shots were fired, nobody heard the gunfire, and also no windows were damaged, indicating the attackers may have used silenced pistols and killed their victims at close range.