BEIRUT, 14 September 2004 — A prominent Al-Jazeera journalist best known for his coverage of the war on Iraq and hosting a popular program on Islamic law died in a car crash in the Qatari capital Doha on Sunday, the station said.

Maher Abdullah, 45, was killed Sunday morning after the vehicle he was driving veered off the road and crashed into a tree, the Qatari-based satellite station said. It said a London-based Egyptian academic, Bashir Nafi, was injured in the accident.

“We feel a great loss at Maher’s death,” said Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout, according to the station’s website. “He has been an integral part of the Al-Jazeera team for many years. Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones.”

The station yesterday aired highlights of his weekly Islamic program, with a black banner of mourning across the top of the screen.

Abdullah, a Palestinian born in the West Bank city of Jenin, obtained a degree in mechanical engineering at a British university but joined the world of journalism early on. He worked at the London-based Middle East Broadcasting Corporation and the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper before joining Al-Jazeera shortly after it was launched in 1996.

He was among the few journalists who stayed on in Baghdad during the US-led war to oust former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, courageously reporting from war zones. Al-Jazeera said he narrowly survived the US missile attack on the station’s Baghdad office on April 8, 2003, which killed his colleague Tareq Ayyoub.

On the same day, Abdullah’s live reporting of the fall of Baghdad is remembered vividly by viewers across the Arab world, many of whom depended on Al-Jazeera’s coverage for information about the war. He was the host of a weekly talk show called “Al-Sharia wal Hayat” (Islamic Jurisprudence and Life) in which he hosted prominent Muslim scholars, including Youssef Al-Qaradawi.

Abdullah participated in various media panels both in the Arab world and abroad. At a conference at the University of California, Berkeley, in March, during which veteran reporters and other key figures took part, Abdullah said there has been too little reporting by US media about Iraqi casualties and the plight of civilians there.

“One year later, does anybody here know how many Iraqis were killed in this war?” Maher asked an auditorium full of hundreds of people. “You make all this effort to establish democracy and don’t give a damn as to how many were killed?”

Abdullah is survived by his wife and three children.