BAGHDAD, 19 August 2003 — The shooting death of a photo journalist by US troops has shocked the hundreds-strong community of journalists covering the US operation in Iraq.
The top US military spokesman yesterday offered condolences to the family of Mazen Dana, the 43-year-old Reuters television cameraman killed by American forces on Sunday, but said US troops would not fire warning shots when they felt threatened.
“I can’t give you details on the rules of engagement, but the enemy is not in formations, they are not wearing uniforms. During war time, firing a warning shot is not a necessity. There is no time for a warning shot if there is potential for an ambush,” Lt. Col. Guy Shields told a news briefing. He was bombarded with questions about the shooting of Dana, a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Hebron.
Dana, described by Reuters as one of its best cameramen and who had won several awards for his coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was killed by US tank forces outside the US-run Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad.
The military said the soldiers believed Dana’s camera was a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. His last pictures, shown repeatedly on satellite television broadcasts seen in Baghdad, showed two tanks approaching, the nearest appeared to be about 50 meters away when six shots rang out and the camera fell to the ground from Dana’s shoulder. Dana was believed to have been killed by the first shot which penetrated his chest and left a huge exit wound in his back.
“I saw Mazen. He screamed one time, and he was putting his hand on his chest and fell down on the ground and started screaming,” said Nael Al-Shyoukhi, who was working with Dana as a sound technician. “I saw him bleeding. I looked I saw the American soldiers around us, and I screamed to the same soldier who shot him, ‘Why did you shoot him? We are TV. You see him with a camera, why did you shoot him?”’ Al-Shyoukhi said the situation had seemed normal before the military opened fire.
In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists called Mazen “a calm but determined witness who took constant risks in order to tell the world the news.” CPJ executive director Ann Cooper called for a full investigation into the shooting.
The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders issued a statement saying it was “appalled and shocked” by the shooting and demanded that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld launch an investigation that would be “honest, rapid and designed to shed full light on this tragedy.”
