AMMAN, 9 April 2003 — A Jordanian journalist was killed yesterday when a US missile hit the offices of Al-Jazeera TV channel in downtown Baghdad.
Tareq Ayoub 35, who was working as a correspondent for the Al-Jazeera network, died after suffering serious wounds. The Al-Jazeera TV channel’s office was badly damaged by the missile, and another cameraman was injured.
Besides being a correspondent for the Al-Jazeera network in Amman, Ayoub was also a writer for the English language Jordan Times daily. He had arrived in Baghdad 10 days ago, after numerous earlier attempts failed.
Arab News spoke with members of his family who found out about his death after Al-Jazeera showed two people being rushed out of the office, carried on blankets. They later announced Ayoub’s death.
His wife Dima told Arab News: “God is a witness to how I feel. My husband was a wonderful father to a one-year-old daughter, and he wanted to cover this war because he believed in showing the truth at all costs.”
Tareq’s sister in-law was more vocal and angry.
“Where are our human rights, what did these people do to deserve this?” she demanded. “That office was a work place for journalists. Why were they targeted?”
Mohammed Do’ma, a journalist in Jordan and a member of the Jordanian Press Association who was a friend of Tareq’s, told Arab News: “He was a kind-hearted, God-fearing gentleman. I’m still in shock. It’s obvious that when the missile hit the office, that is when we lost him.”
Yesterday was a black day for press freedom. Apart from Ayoub’s death, Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman with the Reuters news agency, and Jose Couso, who worked for Telecinco Spanish television, died after a US tank fired on the Palestine Hotel. Three other Reuters staffers were injured.
After the first incident, an Al-Jazeera presenter quickly accused US forces on live television of “intentionally targeting” the channel’s offices, recalling the US bombing of its Kabul bureau during the 2001 war in Afghanistan.
Al-Jazeera’s offices, on the road between the Mansur Hotel and the Planning Ministry, are not far from the Republican Palace compound where fierce fighting raged between US and Iraqi troops yesterday.
Reuters Editor in Chief Geert Linnebank criticized US forces for firing on the Palestine Hotel.
“Taras’ death, and the injuries sustained by the others, were so unnecessary,” Linnebank said from the agency’s headquarters.
He called into question the “judgment of advancing US troops who have known all along that this hotel is the main base for almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad.”
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemned the hotel attack as a possible war crime.
“There is no doubt at all that these attacks could be targeting journalists. If so, they are grave and serious violations of international law,” said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White.
“The bombing of a hotel where journalists are staying and targeting of Arab media are particularly shocking events in a war which is being fought in the name of democracy,” he said.
“Those who are responsible must be brought to justice,” he said.
The Brussels-based lobby group also accused the Iraqi regime of using journalists and other civilians as “human shields,” and demanded that both sides in the war be punished under international law.
Abu Dhabi TV aired harrowing live footage yesterday showing its camera position under attack.
As they filmed the arrival of two US tanks on a major bridge in central Baghdad close to their offices overlooking the river, what appeared to be Iraqi machine-gun fire clattered out from just beneath the camera position. Several incoming blasts boomed out, engulfing the area in smoke.
