The Jerusalem Post April 09, 2003
Three journalists killed, three wounded in Baghdad
By Hamza Hendawi
BAGHDAD - An American tank fired at the Palestine Hotel, where several hundred journalists have been staying, killing two cameramen and wounding three other journalists Tuesday. US officials said the tank had taken fire from the area of the hotel.
Less than a kilometer away, another journalist died when an Al-Jazeera television office was hit from the air in a US bombing run, the network said. An Abu Dhabi TV office in the area was also hit. US Central Command in Doha, Qatar, said US forces encountered "significant" enemy fire from the Palestine Hotel and from the building where the Al-Jazeera journalists were working.
"These tragic incidents appear to be the latest examples of the Iraqi regime's continued strategy of using civilian facilities for regime military purposes," the statement said.
Frightened reporters in flak vests could be seen carrying wounded colleagues to the lobby of the 18-story Palestine Hotel, where foreign reporters and camera crews have been covering the war from balconies and rooftops.
The tank shell hit balconies on the 14th and 15th floors of the hotel, spraying glass and shrapnel.
Journalists said they had not heard any shooting from the hotel before the shell was fired.
A spokeswoman for the Reuters news agency said Ukrainian cameraman Taras Protsyuk, 35, was killed there and three of its staff members were injured. Spanish television network Telecinco said its cameraman, Jose Couso, 37, hit in the leg and jaw, also died during surgery.
About 1,000 meters to the west, across the Tigris River, an earlier US bombing run struck an Al-Jazeera office in a residential area, the independent, Arabic- language network said. The two-story house is on a road along the river that links the Information Ministry with the old palace presidential compound.
Jordanian reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed, Al-Jazeera said.
Ayyoub's widow, Dima Tahboub, speaking with Al-Jazeera by telephone interview from Amman, appealed to God "to accept him as a martyr."
"Clearly the war, and all its confusion, has come to the heart of Baghdad," said Reuters Editor in Chief Geert Linnebank. "But the incident nonetheless raises questions about the judgment of the advancing US troops who have known all along that this hotel is the main base for almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad."
Journalists held a candelight vigil for their slain colleagues outside the Palestine on Tuesday evening.
Shelling could be heard in the distance, Al-Jazeera reported.
Speaking at Central Command headquarters, US Brig.- Gen. Vincent Brooks initially told reporters that US forces had been fired on from the hotel lobby. But he later corrected his remarks to say: "I may have misspoken on exactly where the fire came from."
The tank that fired on the hotel was attached to the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division.
US Army Col. David Perkins, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade, said Iraqis fired rocket- propelled grenades at tanks from in front of the hotel, and the military, scanning the area for observation posts, saw the Iraqis' binocular and fired. The tanks were also taking fire from mortars, he said.
In Brussels, Belgium, the International Federation of Journalists said both sides in the Iraq war may be guilty of war crimes.
IJF Secretary-General Aidan White said it appeared the attacks may have deliberately targeted journalists. "If so, they are grave and serious violations of international law," he said.
White also chided Iraq for using civilians and journalists as a "human shield" against coalition attacks. "The Baghdad authorities are just as culpable with their reckless disregard for civilian lives," he said.
Nabil Khoury, a US State Department spokesman in Doha, Qatar, said the strike was "a grave mistake."
However, Al-Jazeera chief editor Ibrahim Hilal said the US military knew exactly where the network's offices were, including the building's map coordinates and street number.
Witnesses "saw the plane fly over twice before dropping the bombs. Our office is in a residential area and even the Pentagon knows its location," Hilal said from Qatar.
"The killing of colleague Tareq Ayyoub and the bombardment of the Al-Jazeera office is to cover up the great crime which the Iraqi people are subjected to at the hands of the United States," said one Al-Jazeera correspondent, Majed Abdul-Hadi.
The station said Ayyoub's death was not the first time its reporters covering the war had been subjected to danger. It said an Al-Jazeera office in the southern city of Basra was bombed, and a car, clearly marked, was fired on at a roadblock.
An Abu Dhabi TV office in Baghdad also was hit but no one was injured, news director Nart Bouran said in Abu Dhabi.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, appearing outside the Palestine Hotel, accused coalition forces of targeting civilian areas.
"They bombed residential areas. They bombed Al- Jazeera. They are in a state of hysteria and haste. They imagine that by killing civilians, they'll win," he said.
Reuters identified its wounded staff as Paul Pasquale of Britain, Samia Nakhoul of Lebanon and Iraqi photographer Faleh Kheiber. Doctors said their injuries were not life- threatening.
Also Tuesday, two Polish journalists abducted a day earlier by armed Iraqis near Hillah, south of Baghdad, said they escaped their captors unscathed.
Ten employees of news organizations have been killed in combat conditions since the war begin in Iraq on March 20.
On Monday, two journalists were killed in an Iraqi rocket attack on the US Army south of Baghdad, US Central Command said. Spaniard Julio Anguita Parrado was reporting for the newspaper El Mundo and Christian Liebig was covering the war for the German news weekly Focus. Liebig was a former editor on the international news desk of The Associated Press German language service.
GRAPHIC: Map; photo: Day 20 - Attack targets Saddam and sons. The turret of a US Abrams tank swivels toward the Palestine Hotel before firing from a bridge in Baghdad yesterday. (Credit: Pentagon Briefings, Us Center For Defense Information, Globalsecurity.Org; Ap, Graphic News)
Copyright © 2003, The Jerusalem Post
