Army probes death of reporter in Iraq
( 2003-08-18 16:45) (Agencies)
The Army acknowledged Monday that it had killed a television journalist after soldiers mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Meanwhile, saboteurs set back efforts to rebuild Iraq over the weekend with attacks on the country's lifeblood oil pipelines and the capital's water supply.
The water main bombing came Sunday as two oil fires raged out of control along an oil pipeline to Turkey, halting exports just days after they started. The first blaze appeared to be sabotage, a coalition spokesman said.
A new group of resistance fighters vowed on Sunday to battle the U.S.-led occupation whether or not it helps rebuild the country.
In new violence, a mortar attack on a Baghdad prison being used by the United States killed six Iraqis and injured about 60.
Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, 41, was videotaping outside the prison hours after the attack when U.S. soldiers shot him. He was the 17th news organization employee to be killed since the war began.
The videotape in Dana's camera showed two U.S. tanks coming toward him. Shots were fired, apparently from the tanks, and Dana fell to the ground. His body was taken away by a U.S. helicopter.
"We saw a tank 50 meters away, I heard six shots and Mazen fell to the ground," Dana's driver Munzer Abbas said.
One of the soldiers started shouting at us, but when he knew we were journalists, he softened. One of the soldiers told us they thought Mazen carrying a rocket-propelled grenade."
"There were many journalists around. They knew we were journalists. This was not an accident," Abbas said.
A U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity that American soldiers saw Dana from a distance and mistook him for an Iraqi guerrilla, so they opened fire. When the soldiers came closer, they realized Dana was a journalist, the official said.
"This is clearly another tragic incident, it is extremely regrettable," Central Command spokesman Sgt. Maj. Lewis Matson said.
Stephen Jukes, Reuters' global head of news, said, "Mazen was one of Reuters' finest cameramen and we are devastated by his loss."
Sunday's explosion in northern Baghdad blew a hole in a 5-foot-diameter water main, flooding streets. People waded through chest-high water in some areas. Witnesses said two men on a motorbike left a bag of explosives and detonated it minutes later.
"It was an act of sabotage," said Majid Noufel, a Baghdad water company engineer. "We've had to stop pumping water to the whole city so we can fix the damage."
Residents, finding their taps dry, rushed to buy bottled water but many stores ran out.
"I couldn't find any water to wash the clothes," lamented housewife Amira Ali, 46. "The next few days we're really going to suffer."
A new group of resistance fighters, the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance Movement, said in a videotaped aired on the Al-Jazeera television network that they would battle the occupying troops even if the U.S.-led coalition helps Iraq recover from war.
"This resistance is not a reaction to the American provocations against the Iraqi people or to the shortage of services, as some analysts believe ... but to kick out the occupiers as a matter of principle," a man read from a statement.
He sat with several other men holding grenade launchers and Kalashnikov automatic rifles. All had their faces covered with checkered headscarves.
The motivation for the attack on the prison was unclear. Abu Ghraib, where Saddam's regime executed political prisoners and others, is being used by Iraq's U.S. occupiers to house high-security criminals. U.S. troops at and near the prison have been attacked in past months.
Further north, two blazes a few miles apart raged out of control along the 600-mile pipeline exporting Iraq's oil to Turkey.
The first fire began Friday, only two days after oil exports to Turkey resumed, and the second started Saturday night. The fires were 125 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Coalition spokesman Charles Heatly said the first blaze appeared to be sabotage. Police commander Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim vowed to pursue "a group of conspirators who received money from a particular party" to blow up the pipeline.
Military spokesman Col. Guy Shields said it would take up to two weeks to fix the pipeline.
Meanwhile, U.S. troops shut down a major bomb-making facility near Tikrit, arresting two people, Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the 4th Infantry Division said. Troops seized C-4 plastic explosives, mortars, automatic rifles and other equipment.
Near Baquoba, 45 miles north of Baghdad, U.S. forces captured 12 suspected Fedayeen Saddam militia members near a U.S. base, said Lt. Col. Mark Young of the 4th Infantry Division. The men were all later released for lack of evidence.
An informer, who lived near the battalion's base at a former Iraqi military camp, told U.S. troops that Fedayeen were in the area, trying to make residents leave before attacking the base, Young said.
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