Bahjat came from a religiously-mixed background, having a Shiite mother and a Sunni father, which made her a symbol of "non-sectarian harmony" to many Iraqis.

Bahjat was abducted and killed in Samarra in the aftermath of the 22 February 2006 bomb attack that devastated the Al Askari Mosque. Her cameraman, Khaled Mahmoud Al Falahi (39) and a technician Adnan Khairallah (36) also were killed. A fourth member of the team managed to escape the ambush. Her team was surrounded by a crowd of civilians, but, according to the surviving crew member, two armed men fired shots in the air, dispersing the crowd. One of the armed men shouted, "We want the anchorwoman." Bahjat cried for help from the crowd but to no avail.

On Saturday, February 25, her funeral procession was attacked twice, first by gunmen who opened fire on mourners and later by a roadside bomb that targeted the funeral cortege as it returned from the cemetery. At least three security personnel were killed in the attacks on her funeral and four people were injured.

Bahjat was known for wearing an Iraqi map pendant necklace, and after Bahjat's death many Iraqi women have adopted similar necklaces in her memory.

In 2006, the Committee to Protect Journalists posthumously awarded a CPJ International Press Freedom Award to Bahjat.

On May 7, 2006, The Sunday Times of Britain published an article written by Arab journalist Hala Jaber, in which she describes watching a video of Bahjat being stripped of her clothing and beheaded. The video was later proven to have nothing to do with Bahjat's murder; instead it is believed to show the murder of a Nepalese man by The Army of Ansar al-Sunna in August 2004. Report on video, MyPetJawa On May 28, 2006 The Sunday Times retracted the story, saying it was the victim of a hoax.

On March 18, 2006, Iraq's Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi announced the arrest of six men suspected of involvement in Atwar Bahjat's murder her two-person crew from Dubai. "The six terrorists who killed the Iraqi television crew will be put on public display today or tomorrow," Dulaimi declared on March 18, but no one was put on public display to date. They were arrested in the course of Operation Swarmer, a major operation involving both Iraqi forces and a brigade of the 101st Airborne division and north of Samarra, which was kicked off on March 16, 2006.

News reporter Jill Carroll overheard her kidnappers state that they were the ones who killed Ms. Bahjat. In part 8 of her story detailing her captivity, Carroll writes that one of her captors told her "We killed an Al Arabiya journalist. She said the mujahideen are bad." Carroll also wrote "It was unclear if he meant that he himself had participated in the killing or if it had been done by men from the larger group of mujahideen."

In reality bahjat was shot three times in the head, chest, neck after being raped. The man who killed her later gave a live interview saying he told her to get out of car and told her she is attractive and asked her to sleep with her. She said no and he put a pistol on her head raped her and after he was done killed her.

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