SOLVEDListenBaghdad, Iraq · 2000s
Abduction of Russian Diplomats in Iraq
In June 2006, insurgents ambushed a Russian Embassy car in Baghdad, killing one guard and abducting four staff who were later killed by their captors.
What happened
On April 8, 2003, during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American armed forces fired on three locations in Baghdad known to house journalists, resulting in three deaths and four injuries within a matter of hours.
In the first incident, two U.S. air-to-surface missiles struck Al Jazeera's Baghdad office. The strike killed Tareq Ayyoub, a Palestinian reporter for the network, and wounded Zouhair al-Iraqi, an Iraqi cameraman, both of whom had been broadcasting live from the roof of the building. Al Jazeera stated it believed it had been deliberately targeted, citing a 2001 U.S. strike on its Kabul bureau during the invasion of Afghanistan.
In the second incident, a U.S. Army tank fired on the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel, which housed most foreign journalists in Baghdad. The tank round killed Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and wounded three others; José Couso, a cameraman for Spain's Telecinco, who was on the 14th floor, also died. The tank commander requested and received permission to fire a high-explosive anti-tank round. The unit had reportedly not been briefed on the hotel's location or its concentration of journalists, as the hotel fell outside its assigned sector. U.S. forces later concluded the actual Iraqi spotter was probably in a different nearby building. In 2008, a former U.S. Army Intelligence linguist stated she had seen documents listing the Palestine Hotel as a possible military target prior to the shelling.
In the third incident, the Baghdad office of the United Arab Emirates satellite channel Abu Dhabi TV was hit by air strikes; the station separately aired footage of Iraqi gunfire near its location.
Officials responded to the incidents in press briefings. At the Pentagon, Major General Stanley McChrystal defended soldiers' right to self-defense when fired upon in urban combat. In Doha, Brigadier General Vincent K. Brooks stated the coalition does not target journalists and could not track journalists' locations across the battlefield. The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and Amnesty International all called for investigations, with Reporters Without Borders seeking proof the strikes were not deliberate attempts to suppress media coverage.
The Committee to Protect Journalists published its own investigation on May 27, 2003, after interviewing roughly a dozen witnesses, including embedded journalists who had monitored military radio traffic. It concluded the Palestine Hotel attack, while intended for an Iraqi artillery spotter and not deliberately aimed at journalists, was avoidable, and noted that Pentagon officials and ground commanders had known the hotel was full of international journalists and intended not to hit it.
