The death toll from a raid on an Iraqi satellite channel on Thursday rose to nine, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

Nine employees of the al-Sha'abiyah channel were killed when unknown gunmen raided their office in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood, the source said.

"Unidentified armed men in three sport utility vehicles and three pickups, stormed the building of the al-Sha'abiyah channel in Zaiyounah neighborhood at about 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT)," Brigadier Karim from Baghdad police told Xinhua.

The office manager of the channel Abdul-Rahim al-Nasrawi was among the killed, Karim said.

Nasrawi, a secular Shiite, was the head of the Justice and Democratic Progress movement.

An earlier report quoted another Interior Ministry source as saying that the gunmen killed three employees and wounded three others in the raid.

Al-Sha'abiyah is a new independent channel, which so far has only done test broadcasts.

Violence rages in Iraq as sectarian killings, car bombings, roadside bombs cause dozens of Iraqi casualties daily.

Source: Xinhua