AP cameraman killed in Iraq attacks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-24 08:36

An Associated Press Television News cameraman was killed while covering a battle in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, becoming the second AP staffer to die in violence in that country, the news agency said.

Colleagues and relatives of the three kidnapped Romanian journalists in Iraq display banners with their pictures during a rally in Bucharest's main square demanding their release. [AFP]

Nine Iraqi soldiers died in a suicide bombing west of Baghdad, one of a spate of deadly attacks, as US forces said they had captured six Iraqis suspected of involvement in the downing of a Bulgarian helicopter.

The clock was meanwhile ticking down for three Romanian journalists threatened with death by their Islamist captors unless Bucharest pledges by Tuesday to withdraw its 800-strong force from Iraq.

The AP cameraman was named as Saleh Ibrahim. His nationality was not given.

"We are grief-stricken at the news of Saleh Ibrahim's death," AP President and Chief Executive Tom Curley said in a statement.

"AP will fully investigate this tragic happening so we can understand the circumstances under which it occurred," Curley said.

Last year, 23 journalists, including 17 Iraqis, were killed in Iraq, along with 16 Iraqi media workers, as the country remained the most dangerous place in the world for reporters, according to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

The nine Iraqi soldiers died in a bomb blast in Abu Ghraib, a district which is home to the notorious prison of the same name. Their deaths coincided with the clearing of four senior US military officers of wrongdoing in last year's inmate abuse scandal at the jail.

Twenty people were also wounded in the blast, a defence ministry official said.

In the capital, another suicide bomber killed an Iraqi and wounded at least 10 people, including three US troops, when he blew himself up near a US convoy on the road to the airport, officials said.

The attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda's Iraq frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on the Internet.

Another bombing in western Baghdad killed an Iraqi woman and wounded seven people, officials said.

And further west in the town of Al-Haswah, a roadside bomb killed a US marine, the military said.

In northern Iraq, two truck drivers were killed in separate incidents near the oil refinery town of Beiji, police said.

As funerals were held for victims of a car bombing outside a crowded Shiite mosque in Baghdad on Friday, a Shiite leader warned of reprisals if Sunni Arab leaders failed to condemn the mounting sectarian violence.

"We blame members of the Sunni community for these attacks and we call on them to condemn these criminal acts to ensure there's no retaliation," said Assad Abu Kalal, provincial governor for the Shiite shrine city of Najaf.

The US military said that following a tip-off they had captured six suspects in Thursday's shooting down of a helicopter, that killed six US security guards, three Bulgarian crew and two Fijians.

The Islamic Army in Iraq said it shot down the helicopter and posted video footage on the Internet of what it said was the blazing wreckage of the aircraft and the corpses of the victims.

The head of Bulgaria's Heliair company, Mikhail Mikhailov, said on Bulgarian television he had recognized one of the killed Bulgarian pilots on the video.

Returning from Baghdad late Saturday, Mikhailov said he "wanted to know whether the man whose killing had been shown on the video was one of the three Bulgarian pilots.

"For me that was him. It is pilot Lubomir Kostov," he said.

In the Romanian capital Bucharest, presidential aide Claudiu Saftoiu said the government had sent a message to the kidnappers of three journalists but declined to disclose its contents.

A chilling videotape sent to Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera showed the three hostages -- Marie-Jeanne Ion and Sorin Miscoci of Prima TV and Eduard Ohanesian of Romania Libera -- appealing to their government to agree to pull out within four days "otherwise they will execute us."

In Washington, a Pentagon investigation cleared four top US army officers of wrongdoing in last year's scandal over the sexual and physical abuse of Abu Ghraib detainees which cast a stain on the US record in Iraq.

The probe exonerated Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez who, as commander of US forces in Iraq from June 2003 to July 2004, had briefly issued a set of tough interrogation guidelines that some say encouraged the abuse.

So far, only seven prison guards have faced legal action for their behaviour at Abu Ghraib.

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