"The aircraft was being fired upon," Smith said, adding that an hour later, the helicopters were given clearance to fire again but did not because they had not positively identified which people were insurgents.
Also in Baghdad, a suicide bomber set off an explosion next to two patrol cars in the Amyria neighborhood, killing two Iraqi police officers and wounding four, 1st Lt. Sudad Fadhil said.
A man walks near a burning U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicle hit by a bomb on Haifa Street in Baghdad. A U.S. helicopter fired on a crowd surrounding the disabled vehicle, killing a Palestinian television reporter and 12 other people.
(Hussein Malla -- AP)
|
|
Elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. Marines killed an insurgent and captured seven others after they launched an attack at Abu Ghraib prison, 20 miles west of Baghdad, where more than 2,000 detainees are in U.S. custody.
At 6 a.m., there was a series of mortar fire at the complex, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, spokesman for U.S. detention operations in Iraq. About 20 minutes later, U.S. forces spotted three civilian pickup trucks with machine guns on a road near the complex. While fighters in two of the trucks engaged in a firefight with U.S. forces, the third truck sped up and drove through a chain-link gate marking the outer perimeter of the prison. Marines fired on the truck, and it exploded before it reached the main security wall of the complex, Johnson said. No U.S. soldiers or detainees were wounded.
Sunday marked the Muslim holiday of Isra wa al-Miraj, or the night journey and ascension, which celebrates the prophet Muhammad's travel from Mecca to Jerusalem, ascension to heaven and return to Mecca in the same night. Muslims believe that on this night Muhammad established the current custom of five daily prayers.
At the al-Arabiya office in Baghdad, employees huddled around a television set and cried as they watched the video coverage showing their colleague being killed. A picture of Tumaisi hung on the doors of the office with the inscription, "Martyr Mazin Tumaisi, who was killed by the American forces on September 12th 2004." Tumaisi's photograph joined the photographs of two other al-Arabiya correspondents, Ali Khatib and Ali Abdel-Aziz, who were killed by U.S. forces in March.
Laith Ahmed, operations manager at the network, said Tumaisi had called at 7 a.m. to report the clashes on Haifa Street. He called again to report that he was standing near the destroyed U.S. armored vehicle. Ahmed said Tumaisi called five minutes later and said: "Help me. Send someone right away. I am injured in my leg and head. Please help. Please help me quickly."
Tumaisi was taken to Karama Hospital, where he died of his injuries.
"It is a big scandal," Ahmed said. "What excuse they have? The tank was destroyed, why should they hit it again?"
When the footage aired again on the television, Ahmed broke down in tears. "I remember when he called me asking for help," he said. "I couldn't help him."
"God's mercy be on him," said Wihad Yaqub, al-Arabiya's executive manager. "The Americans killed him. . . . He wanted to learn journalism, but he didn't have enough time. He died early."
Special correspondents Bassam Sebti and Omar Fekeiki contributed to this report.
