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The Iraq War and the Media by IPI (Part 2)



Day 10: Saturday, 29 March, 2003

Baghdad came under the most concentrated bombing in more than a week. US warplanes bombed a building in Basra, where about 200 paramilitaries loyal to Saddam Hussein were believed to have gathered. Baghdad warned that suicide missions against coalition forces would become "routine military policy", following a deadly attack against US soldiers on Saturday. As opposed to initial reports that 14 civilians had been killed in a Baghdad shopping area on 26 March, BBC now reported that up to 50 people were confirmed dead. US-led coalition forces were still trying to cope with stiff resistance in the southern city of Nasiriya.

Newsday reported that three Westerners who went missing from a Baghdad hotel turned up in Syria. A report quoted representatives of the peace activist group Human Shield Action as saying they had spoken with peace activist Philip Latasa of the United States, who was accompanied by two photographers, Molly Bingham of the United States, and Johan Spanner of Denmark. The Middle East program co-ordinator for CPJ told Reuters that this information had not "been fully verified yet." Newsday and CPJ said that there was still no word on Newsday reporter Matthew McAllester and photographer Moises Saman, who last made contact with the NY-based daily Monday. These latter two were believed to have been detained by the Iraqi government. Newsday editor Anthony Marro said in a statement that no one saw the pair being removed from the Palestine Hotel but that their room was empty, and Iraqi security officials allegedly asked other journalists questions about the pair's activities. "We appeal to Iraqi officials to explain their whereabouts, to allow us to contact them directly and to allow their safe passage out of Iraq," he said. Newsday is one of the largest daily newspapers in the United States, serving Long Island and New York City. It has won 17 Pulitzer prizes.

Seven Italian journalists who were previously apprehended by Iraqi soldiers in Basra were safe and sound in the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, one of them who was permitted to make contact told his offices in Rome. "We are being well treated," Francesco Battistini of the daily Corriere della Serra assured his employer, according to Italian state television RAI. The other six worked for Il Sole-24 Ore, Il Resto Del Carlino, Il Giornale, L'Unita, Il Messaggero and Il Mattino. The seven journalists were not in danger of having their positions in Iraq compromised, but the Iraqi authorities first had to decide whether they would need accreditation to continue reporting from Baghdad. The seven journalists were brought from Basra to Baghdad on Friday under tight protection by Iraqi forces. "We are happy and relieved that nothing has happened to our colleagues. This proves that one can still work in Baghdad with a guaranteed position," Giancarlo Mazzuca, the Editor-in-Chief of the Bolognese daily Il Resto del Carlino said, upon having spoken with his correspondent Lorenzo Blanchi by telephone. Al-Jazeera also said that a cameraman who had gone missing during a British artillery attack on Basra had rejoined his news team and was in good health.

The Pentagon stepped up its offensive aimed at illustrating the "brutality of the Iraqi regime." Chief Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke played videotaped clips of a news documentary showing the effects of Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Kurdish villagers 15 years ago, alongside an interview of a woman who said her family was tortured by President Saddam Hussein's government. Clarke had no comment to a reporter's question whether she was showing the clips to counteract widely shown TV images of civilian deaths and casualties in Iraq as a result of allied bombing, but said that it had been "her decision to use those clips. I have met some of these people. And I have heard their stories. And I was just struck in the last couple of days hearing some people say, "Well aren't you surprised by the brutality of the Iraqi regime?" How could anyone be surprised?" she said. The decision to show these clips came as Pentagon officials investigated whether US bombs caused as much as 50 civilian deaths in Baghdad in two incidents in recent days. The excerpts shown were from a BBC documentary detailing the aftermath of the Iraqi government's use of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians in Halabja in 1988. The footage also included a close-up of a Kurdish woman with a hideous facial disfigurement. Portions of a videotaped interview conducted by the Department of Defence in February with Zainab Al-Suwaij, an Iraqi woman living in Massachusetts were also shown. Al-Suwaij described the imprisonment, torture and killing that her family was submitted to after a teacher saw her 16-year-old cousin write "I don't like Saddam" in her notes at school. She alleged that the police took the girl, along with her parents, siblings, uncles, a cousin and an aunt to prison. She then read a letter which she alleged was written by the girl describing her treatment in prison: "And they also start using electrical shock on my fingertips and my lips and my nipples. Also they used to hang me from my feet, and they used to make me walk on broken glass. One day they took all my clothes off and they threatened my parents that they are going to rape me," Al-Suwaij alleged the letter stated. A Defence Department document identifies Al-Suwaij as the executive director of the American Islamic Congress, a "social organisation that is dedicated to building inter-faith and inter-ethnic understanding." She also participated in the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein after the Gulf war that was suppressed by the regime.

Gaby Rado, a British award-winning foreign affairs correspondent reporting for Channel 4, was found dead at a hotel in Sulaimaniya, a town in the Kurdish-controlled area of Northern Iraq. His death appears to have no direct connection to military action. "It is believed that Gaby fell from the roof of the Abu Sanaa hotel into the car park below, where his body was found," ITN said in a prepared statement. A witness saw him walking up to the hotel roof alone. Channel 4 editor Jim Gray called Rado "a unique figure in television journalism," and praised his extensive reporting from conflicts throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Afghanistan. British daily The Guardian quoted Gray as saying that " Mr Rado's reporting and analysis of some of the world's most tumultuous events was always imbued with his uniquely cultured sensibility and perception... We loved Gaby very much and he will be deeply missed." Born in Budapest, Hungary. Mr Rado emigrated to England with his family when he was eight. He studied English at Christ's College, Cambridge, and started his journalism career in 1976 as a reporter on the Kentish Times, moving to BBC Radio Leicester in 1978 and BBC Television in 1979.



Day 11: Sunday, 30 March, 2003

B-52 bombers dropped massive payloads on Republican Guard positions in the southern outskirts of Baghdad, while laser-guided bombs struck communication facilities and government buildings inside the city. General Franks dismissed reports the coalition had been set back by unexpectedly stiff Iraqi resistance, saying: "We're in fact on plan. And where we stand today is not, in my view, only acceptable but truly remarkable." The Royal Marines who led an operation in the village of Abu al-Qassib and who were supported by other units said Iraqi fighters there had put up the hardest resistance they had seen so far.

Syrian reporter Wael Awwad, Lebanese cameraman Talal Masri and Lebanese technician Ali Safa, all of whom went missing in Iraq on 22 March, resurfaced in Kuwait. "They arrived in Kuwait and are tired but in good health," Al-Arabiya told Reuters.

Peter Arnett gave an interview to Iraqi state television in which he stated that, "the first US war plan has failed." The Pentagon had no official comment on the Arnett interview; however, an unnamed official implied that the reporter had been manipulated. "Saddam Hussein's regime is cloaked in lies and manipulation and he has maintained his power not only through force and intimidation, but also through the manipulation of the media. It is important that the media accurately report to the world what is happening to Iraq," the US defence official said. "His impromptu interview with Iraqi television was done as a professional courtesy and was similar to other interviews he has done with media outlets from around the world," NBC, its cable outlet MSNBC, and National Geographic Explorer said in a joint statement. "His remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more," the statement said. In the interview Arnett said American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces. "Now America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and rewriting the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan," Arnett said in excerpts aired on some US cable television networks. He said there was a "growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war. So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces there are all going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war, and who challenge the policy, to develop their arguments," Arnett said.

Journalists at the US Central Command in Qatar were complaining that they get more spin than news, and that journalists were being withdrawn: "Why should we stay? What's the value to us for what we learn at this million-dollar press centre?," a reporter from New York Magazine asked openly at a briefing session, to the applause of colleagues. Journalists from Britain felt so starved of information that they put up a sign with a recurring remark uttered in briefings by British forces commander Air Marshal Brian Burridge: "We don't do detail." An official from a network put it like this: "They are playing catch-up sometimes and somehow that reduces the value." Many of the 700 journalists accredited in Doha were becoming openly contemptuous of the daily proceedings that US General Tommy Franks called a "platform for truth." Military commanders often gave as a reason for the placidity of their feedback that they "don't want to divulge military secrets to the Iraqis." However, journalists suspected that it was also a question of "political spin". "At daily news conferences and private briefings, senior Central Command officials have been more determined to paint Iraqi forces in the darkest light possible than to shed light on the embattled progress of the military campaign," journalist Alan Sipress reported from Doha in Saturday's Washington Post. Reporters attributed this focus to the man in charge of the media centre, Jim Wilkinson, a former spokesman for the US National Republican Congressional Committee and a political appointee introduced by the Bush administration. In Doha, each briefing, held on a $200,000 set designed by a Hollywood consultant, begins with a "bullish statement" about the state of the war and videos depicting precision bombing by US forces. Questions on reports from the battlefield by senior US officers concerning stretched supply lines, troop numbers and Iraqi resistance went either unanswered or were contradicted in Doha by junior officers.

Reuters reported that US military commanders had banned the use of certain satellite phones carried by journalists attached to their units, fearing that the signal would give away location status to Iraqi forces. Several Reuters reporters embedded with US forces said that they had been told to switch their Thuraya satellite phones off. One said that his phone had been confiscated. Correspondent Matthew Green explained that "Officers have ordered me to hand my phone in and I am giving it to one of the officers. They say it's for security, that the Iraqis can use it to triangulate the signal and fire missiles." Questioned about the new rules, Major-General Victor Renuart explained at a news briefing at the US Central Command in Qatar that the order was not meant to restrict media coverage. "On the battlefield, operational security is critical and there are times and places on the battlefield in which you need to make sure no communications go out," he said. A Pentagon spokesperson said that this was not a "theatre-wide prohibition." Thuraya handsets can work on normal mobile networks or as satellite phones. They use a Geographical Positioning System (GPS), which is one reason for military concern. Thuraya's location-finding system is highly accurate - a user can be identified within 100 metres of where he/she is standing. A long-term ban on Thurayas could impair the ability of journalists to file real-time reports from the battlefields.

Al-Jazeera refused to censor the images it transmitted despite repeated calls from top western officials. "We're not catering to any specific side or ideology. What we are doing is our business as professionally as possible, " Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for the Qatar-based channel, was quoted as saying. The images of bombed Baghdad buildings, bloodied and screaming Iraqi children and slain or captured US and British soldiers seen by millions of viewers angered Washington and London, which seek to portray the invasion as a heroic war of liberation executed on behalf of the Iraqi people. "If there's a perceived imbalance, it's purely a function of access," said Ballout, recounting that if the Americans and British would have given Al-Jazeera more access to their troops, "you would certainly find as much coverage on the ground from there as you would find from the Iraqi side." Subscriber figures doubled to eight million homes in the first week of the war, mainly in countries with large Muslim or Arab populations, such as Britain and France. With many Arabs protesting bitterly at the US-led invasion, authorities in some Arab states also objected to Al-Jazeera's coverage.



Day 12: Monday, 31 March, 2003

Coalition bombs and missiles struck Iraqi presidential sites in central Baghdad and pounded Republican Guard divisions just south of the city in round-the-clock bombardment. The ground war moved closer to Baghdad, with fierce skirmishes between US troops and Republican Guard units at Hindiya, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the capital. In an incident which would undermine coalition efforts to win hearts and minds, seven Iraqi women and children were killed by US troops when their car failed to stop at a checkpoint. The fighting at Hindiya, on the Euphrates river, was reported to be the closest engagement yet to the capital.

As raids targeted the northern city of Mosul, a cruise missile struck Iraq's Information Ministry during a night time raid, damaging satellite dishes. Reuters reporters on the scene were denied access to the building to survey the damage. Domestic state television, routinely used by President Saddam Hussein to address the nation, was knocked off the air in the morning. Nonetheless, daily broadcasts began at around 12:30 p.m. (0930 GMT), four hours later than usual, showing pro-Hussein propaganda. Iraq's international satellite kept broadcasting while the domestic channel was off the air. This was the second attack on Iraq's official information headquarters. The blasts also triggered a fire near the Ministry complex. At daybreak, the Presidential Palace used by President Hussein's son Qusay, who controls the Republican Guard, was struck. "We jumped off our seats," Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said. "We can see flames coming out of the palace." The raids also scored two direct hits on the city centre telephone exchange, destroying the six-storey building. The hit brought to six the number of exchanges knocked out in the bombings. There were around 20 exchanges in Baghdad, but already now making a telephone call became almost impossible without resort to satellite communications. Saturday's previous strike on the Ministry of Information damaged an annex where many foreign media organisations, including Reuters, had their offices; government news conferences were moved to a nearby hotel. US air forces also struck a military communications site in the centre of Baghdad.

Veteran American war correspondent Peter Arnett was fired from NBC due to the interview he gave to Iraqi television in which he alleged that American military plans in Iraq were failing and echoed widespread scepticism over the Pentagon's strategy. The interview was replayed at least twice in Iraq and later screened on American television, prompting outrage from prominent politicians: "it is nauseating! It is incredible that he would be kowtowing to what clearly is the enemy in this way," Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida bristled. NBC initially defended Arnett, but was pressured by an avalanche of protests in the wake of Arnett's comments. "It was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state-controlled Iraqi-TV, especially at a time of war," NBC spokesperson Allison Gollust later said. Arnett stood by his comments, insisting his views were not "out of line with what the experts think." He did, however, express regret for what he called a "stupid misjudgement" in granting the interview. Arnett was accused by the Pentagon of being a conveyor of Iraqi propaganda during the first Gulf War.

In the press release, "IPI Responds to BBC "Friend of Baghdad" Accusations by UK Ministers", IPI condemned attempts by UK cabinet ministers to undermine the reporting of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the war in Iraq. There were a number of instances of ministers criticising the BBC for providing 24-hour coverage which is allegedly distorting the public's perspective of the Iraqi war. Moreover, ministers alleged that the BBC was failing to properly distinguish between the Iraqi regime and the allied forces. Such accusations led to claims that the BBC was behaving as if there were a "moral equivalence" between the two sides in the war, a claim that led a 30 March article in the Guardian to quote a "senior" government figure as describing the situation in the following terms: "On the one side is a dictatorship that allows no scrutiny of what it does; on the other are democracies which have a policy of openness and allow themselves to be questioned."

Responding to the question of the 24-hour news cycle, IPI said, "The BBC has a both a right and an absolute duty to report on this war. It is vital to the viewing public that they receive a plurality of views in order to understand what is happening in Iraq. Politicians have assiduously cultivated the news cycle for their own benefit in peace time and it would seem to be both wrong and irresponsible for politicians to criticise the media during a time of war purely because they do not like what they are seeing on their television screens." On the subject of news reporting, IPI commented, "The UK government must accept the fact that the best people to decide news are not politicians, but the broadcasters themselves."



Day 13: Tuesday, 1 April, 2003

At least 11 members of the same family - mostly children - were killed in a coalition air strike on a residential district in central Iraq. Hospital sources in Hilla, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Baghdad, said they were among 33 civilians killed and more than 300 injured in the attack early on Tuesday morning. Correspondents travelling with advance units of coalition troops said they had already clashed with units of Republican Guards some 70 kilometres south of Baghdad. Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan said more than 6,000 Arab volunteers were now in Iraq, and more than half of them suicide bombers.

Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera was expelled from his embedded post with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq for "violating the ground rules of the program that allows journalists to travel with military units," the International Herald Tribune reported. "He was revealing tactical information and compromising operational security," said Lieutenant Mark Kitchens, a spokesman at the Central Command headquarters at As Sayliyah, Qatar. "At one point, he actually revealed the time of an attack prior to its occurrence," he said. Rivera was escorted back to Kuwait, and was not available for further comment.

The group of journalists who disappeared from a Baghdad hotel last week turned up unharmed in Jordan on Tuesday, saying that they had been held in an Iraqi jail but that they had not been physically harmed, Reuters reported. "We were in Abu Ghraib prison for seven or eight days. There were no specific charges. It wasn't much fun but we were not physically hurt and we are very happy to be out," Matthew McAllester, the Newsday reporter from Edinburgh, Scotland, said, speaking from a four-wheel drive vehicle in Jordan's desert town of Ruweished. Moises Saman, the Peruvian Newsday photographer, was also in the vehicle, together with freelance photographer Molly Bingham of Louisville, Kentucky, and Danish freelance photographer Johan Spanner. A fifth member of the group who was present declined to give his name. "We are just really tired right now," Saman said. "The single most important thing is that we understand that there were many people who were trying their very hardest to get us out, and I think I speak for everyone in saying that we are incredibly grateful," McAllester said. McAllester is the United Nations correspondent for Newsday, and has previously worked in the Middle East, covering the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Together with Saman, he also covered the US-led war in Afghanistan in October 2001. Molly Bingham, whose family founded two Kentucky papers, worked as an official photographer for former Vice President Al Gore during his successful, yet failed, Presidential bid in 2000 against George W. Bush, and has covered conflicts worldwide. The group insisted that they were not physically harmed, but that they had heard the sounds of other prisoners being beaten. "We could hear screams, especially at night," McAllester told a news conference in Amman. "We were in a cell block that had a corridor going down the centre, on either side were cells&opposite us were Iraqi prisoners," adding that he would lie down facing away from the corridor at night. "They were being taken out of their cells&and were beaten&a yard or two away from where I was sleeping, where we were all sleeping, with some kind of implement. They looked quite poorly in the morning. One night, a guy was moaning for half an hour, an hour, and I think they brought a doctor at one stage for him. I have no idea who was doing it," he said, adding there were both interrogators and guards in the prison. Saman said that the beatings "seemed to be a daily ritual. A group of people come and pick on somebody for whatever reason."

In the Abu Ghraib prison, they were given pyjamas, soap, blankets and food, including eggs for breakfast, and told not to speak each other from their cells, although McAllester and Bingham managed to communicate by tapping on the adjoining walls of their cells. They were all interrogated, and led from their cells blindfolded. They were interrogated about their equipment, what they photographed and who they spoke to. Bingham said she was offered tea and cigarettes at the end of one session, but demanded to have her blindfold removed upon being asked to sign a statement. Saman qualified his treatment as "humane." Bingham agreed, saying "I would second that&I was not physically hurt in any way." "I've paid for worse hotel rooms in Africa," Bingham later said of her cell on NBC's "Today" show. "It was decent, it was a clean cell. I slept on a cement floor with two wool blankets, and I was given three meals a day and had access to a bathroom." "I will say that I was treated humanely, I think we all were, we weren't physically abused in any way," she added. McAllester said his interrogator was "disconcertingly polite" at times, but he was accused once of being dishonest and told his safety depended on him telling the truth. "I sense that they knew we were scared enough and didn't need to do any more." No specific charges were levelled, although McAllester suggested that it had been implied, albeit never charged explicitly, that he was a spy. The four were made to sign statements and released, and were given back most of their belongings, except for some money and phones. Jim Rupert, Newsday's foreign editor, said that many people had mediated their release, in addition to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. Arafat had asked his ambassador to Iraq to contact Iraqi authorities and to help free the foreign journalists. Rupert said Arafat's appeal had played "an important role" in the journalist's release. Iraq maintained strict rules for journalists, such as requiring they be accompanied by a government "minder".

A different picture emerged concerning the much disputed "embedment" procedure that cast an uncommonly positive light on the initiative. Luke Baker reported in a Reuters article that "embedding" had won a "tentative thumbs up from both soldiers and reporters." Accordingly, journalists had the unprecedented opportunity to observe and report on the military up close and personally - from the way ordinary soldiers live and work to the way generals draw up their battle plans. For the military, soldiers had been granted a chance to explain to "folks back home" what exactly it is they do. Officers and enlisted men said that the war they were fighting was more likely to be reported in a "fair and balanced" light if journalists were operating alongside them, rather than reporting events from afar. A positive aspect for journalists, it was being said, was the "relative lack of censorship." It was alleged by sympathetic voices that commanders in the field had been open in terms of letting journalists in on secret briefings and plans, trusting reporters not to release information until critical missions were complete, and that military oversight had in fact been minimal. "There's not necessarily any censorship, but we're completely dependent on the army for food, water and security without access to opposing points of view," said Gareth Schweitzer of Washington DC-based Talk Radio News. "That makes it that much harder to report anything negative or damaging about the military." Concerns also abounded that the amount of access offered to journalists was restricted when things start to go badly for the US military. As Luke Baker put it, "news reports about edgy soldiers opening fire on civilians at checkpoints have not helped Washington's efforts to portray the invasion as an effort to liberate the Iraqi people." Journalists were also said to complain about the length of the war, initially assumed to be a short affair. "I've had enough," said Tim, a cameraman for a German satellite TV station. "The food sucks, I haven't slept in days and we can't work because we only brought enough tapes for a week."



Day 14: Wednesday, 2 April, 2003

US ground forces overcame divisions of elite Iraqi troops to bring them within 32 kilometres (20 miles) of the Iraqi capital, according to American military officials. US marines appeared to be in control of most of the southern city of Nasiriya, a key crossing point on the Euphrates river and the scene of heavy fighting in the previous week. The push by the US 3rd Infantry through the gap between the town of Karbala and a lake was said to have been part of a three-pronged attack which also saw American marines further east secure a key bridge across the River Tigris, near Kut. The Marines were said to have destroyed the Baghdad Division of the Republican Guard. A teenage US servicewoman held captive for a week in Iraq arrived in Germany for treatment at an American military hospital. Private Jessica Lynch, 19, has two broken legs, an injured arm and multiple gunshot wounds, but was said to be in stable condition.

Kaveh Golestan, an Iranian free-lance cameraman on assignment for the BBC, was killed in northern Iraq after stepping on a land mine. Golestan accidentally detonated the mine when he stepped out of his car near the town of Kifri, John Morrissey of the BBC's foreign desk told CPJ. Golestan was travelling as part of a four-person BBC crew that included Tehran bureau chief Jim Muir, producer Stuart Hughes, and a translator. Hughes' foot was injured and treated by US military medics. Muir and the translator suffered light injuries. Golestan, who was also a well-known still photographer, worked frequently with the BBC out of its Tehran bureau.

Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported that Australian journalist Ian McPhedran was expelled from Baghdad for "breaking the rules" by leaving his hotel unescorted. McPhedran wrote from Amman that while in Baghdad, he had "decided to head to the Information Ministry, across the river from his hotel, to file an eyewitness report about a US missile attack on the area." He said he received permission from an Iraqi official to leave the hotel.

Practically overnight, Israeli cable companies removed the English-language TV news channel, BBC-World, from their network. Fears abounded that the station's seemingly critical stance towards the war in Iraq was the reason underlying this decision. The cable-network officially declared that a new agreement with the BBC could not be made due to disagreements over the terms of contract. Through cable, BBC-World was beamed into an estimated one million Israeli households. As little as a few months ago, CNN was threatened by the same cable-network company as its reporting was perceived, by most Israelis and especially by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as being one-sided and decidedly pro-Palestinian. Unofficially, the decision to axe BBC-World came "from above" through concerns about showing the Israeli people "programs that might cast the Israelis in a negative light." The liberal daily Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, described the move as "proof of the lack of understanding for democracy (in Israel)."

Al-Jazeera said that Iraq had barred two of its correspondents from reporting and that the network was halting the work of all its journalists in Iraq in protest. Tayseer Alouni, the star correspondent from Al-Jazeera, was expelled from Iraq on 1 April by the Ministry of Information, and his Iraqi colleague Diyar al-Omari had his accreditation revoked. The Iraqi government gave no reason for its action against the network, which was lambasted by the United States and Britain for showing distressing pictures from a war that is domestically portrayed by the west as a "humane act of liberation." The Iraqi Information Ministry informed Al-Jazeera's office in Baghdad that its correspondent there, Diyar al-Omari, was banned from performing his journalistic work and that its correspondent Tayseer Alouni must leave Iraq as soon as possible without giving any reasons for the decision, Al-Jazeera said. "Al-Jazeera regrets this surprising and sudden stand which is not justified and has decided, until further notice, to freeze the operations of all its correspondents in Baghdad while continuing to transmit live and taped images from its offices in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul," it added. Al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Helal, said all the network's correspondents would remain in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq until the Iraqi authorities clarified their decision. "They cannot dictate to us who can and who cannot work," he told Reuters by telephone. At the time, Al-Jazeera had eight correspondents in Iraq - five in Baghdad, two in Basra and one in the northern city of Mosul.

Reuters reported that Gulf Telecoms firm Thuraya disputed the coalition contention that the signal satellite phones emit could reveal the location of American troops, and criticised the US ban on journalists using such satellite phones in Iraq. Reporters embedded with US forces in Iraq were banned from using Thuraya, and at least one journalist's handset was confiscated. Thuraya chairman Mohammed Omran said that Thuraya's complex encryption system would make it difficult, if not impossible, to locate journalists using the phone. "The journalists should not be prevented from using Thurayas. It is highly unlikely that our phones are endangering anyone's lives," Omran said. "Callers must specifically request to see their position and even when they do, the information beamed back to them via satellite is encrypted and the code is difficult to track," he said, adding that, however, "there is no system in the world that cannot be penetrated." US officials insist that the ban is not intended to restrict media coverage of the war, but rather to safeguard attacks by the Iraqis. Several technical experts said they were unaware of any field-level technology that could be used to find users. Thurayas use a highly-accurate Geographical Positioning System (GPS), which can identify a user to within 100 metres and which could be cause for military concern. The rival Iridium satellite phones used by the US military are said to have less accurate GPS's. (Iridium satellite phones download their user location and billing data to the United States. Thuraya location data is downloaded to Thuraya headquarters in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.)

The IPI issued a protest to US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and UK Secretary of State for Defence, Geoffrey Hoon, expressing worry "that the military inquiries into the exact circumstances of the disappearance of two journalists are not being conducted in a timely or transparent manner." In the protest, IPI stated that "according to information provided to IPI, on 25 March, members of an Independent Television News (ITN) crew were travelling in two jeeps marked "TV" when they came under heavy fire at Iman Anas on the approach to Basra. The direct hits on the jeeps killed ITN reporter Terry Lloyd and injured cameraman Daniel Demoustier. French cameraman Frédéric Nerac and Lebanese interpreter Hussein Othman, who were also travelling as part of the ITN team, have disappeared and are feared dead. In the aftermath of the tragic incident both the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Central Command in Doha, Qatar, announced an intention to carry out inquiries into the disappearances, but they have so far yielded little information. This is despite the fact that the inquiry into the death of Lloyd has already been concluded, admittedly without a final determination as to who was responsible for his death. As a result of the slow-paced inquiries, nearly eight days after their disappearance, the relatives and colleagues of Nerac and Othman have yet to be officially informed of their whereabouts or, indeed, their fate.

IPI called on the UK and US to carry out a full inquiry into the disappearances of the two journalists and, in the interests of transparency, make the results public as soon as possible. While IPI recognised there may be difficulties in conducting such an investigation at this time, it said it strongly believes that the circumstances of the journalists' disappearance are such that they demand a timely inquiry. On the subject of military inquiries into deaths or disappearances during wartime, IPI feels that there may be a need to thoroughly review the procedure once the war has ended. Because of the nature of the allegations in this incident, it might aid transparency and enhance the validity of final reports if they were conducted by an independent body or expert.

CJFE, the association of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, stated that "the war enters its third week with an unacceptable number of attacks on journalists just doing their jobs. All sides in the conflict would do well to remember that journalists are in the service of their readers, viewers and listeners around the world; they are entitled to fair and humane treatment as they struggle to cover the war. It urged all journalists to monitor the treatment of their colleagues and to speak out when there is abuse." Among the incidents that sparked the concern of the CFJE were the following: US troops expelled four journalists from Iraq on the alleged grounds that they were spies. The journalists - Israel's Dan Scemama of Channel 1 TV, Boaz Bismuth of the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, and Portugal's Luis Castro and Victor Silva, both of Radio Television Portugesa - said they were detained, abused and mistreated by US soldiers. US journalist Caroline Glick of the Chicago Sun Times and the Jerusalem Post was, while in Kuwait earlier this month, pressured by Kuwaiti officials into signing an undertaking not to file stories to her employer in Israel while in Kuwait. NBC fired journalist Peter Arnett after he provided an interview to state-run Iraqi TV. Arnett apologised for doing the interview but was still sacked by his employer, which initially defended his action.

The Iraqi government asked citizens to hand over any portable satellite telephones, claiming that the equipment was being used by "agents" to guide US and British bombs and missiles. All satellite communications equipment is banned in Iraq. In a statement read by a government spokesman on Iraqi television, it was claimed that many Iraqis nonetheless possess such equipment. He urged Iraqis to hand over the satellite phones "before it's too late, (as) such equipment has been used by agents involved in treacherous acts by US agents," and added that a receipt would be issued for every surrendered phone that would be returned after the war. A military spokesperson told the Iraqi news agency that there was a five million Dinar (approx. $1,560) reward for anyone informing on those who used those phones. In the previous week, Iraq had announced the arrest of three Iraqis allegedly involved in guiding US and British air raids. A portable satellite phone was among the "spying equipment" found with the men.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) issued a protest against the restrictions introduced by the US Central Command in Doha, Qatar, on newsgathering in Southern Iraq. "US Central Command policy is now actively restricting independent newsgathering from Southern Iraq," EBU Secretary General Jean Stock said in a statement. "Reporters and camera crews who put their lives at risk have been detained by American and British troops and returned to Kuwait." Mr. Stock said that this treatment appeared to be aimed in particular at organisations from countries who had chosen not to participate in the American-led 'Coalition of the Willing'. "As a result journalists are now exposed to a much greater risk and the coalition policy targets the quality of their reporting," he said. The EBU initially welcomed the decision by US Central Command to allow journalists to "embed" with military units, and saw that move as an important contribution to newsgathering about the conflict. On the other hand, the EBU noted that this only permitted a small number of European broadcasters to report directly on the conflict. "We have independent information that broadcasters can work safely in many areas, so we do not understand why the military is putting so many obstacles in the path of journalists," EBU head of news Tony Naets said. "They have created a caste system with embedded journalists - usually from the countries in the so-called coalition who can associate with the troops - and the truly unilateral broadcaster who is prevented from coming anywhere near the news." The EBU is an association of state and commercial broadcasters which includes the BBC, CNN, Italian, French and German channels.



Day 15: Thursday, 3 April, 2003

US forces said they were taking up positions just outside Baghdad and were ready to fight in what could be a first crucial battle for control of the city. Iraq's information minister Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf dismissed the claims as "silly," saying US troops were "nowhere near Baghdad." US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the UN would definitely have a role to play in post-war Iraq - but the precise nature of the role was yet to be decided. He said the US-led coalition would work in partnership with other organisations but would reserve for itself the "leading role in determining the way forward."

The Australian newspaper's London-based correspondent Peter Wilson and Canberra-based photographer John Feder were arrested in Basra on Tuesday afternoon after entering the besieged city to interview civilians. The pair, along with British-Lebanese interpreter Stuart Innes, were detained by Iraqi authorities and were placed under house arrest in the Baghdad Meridian Palestine Hotel, while the government tried to decide whether to expel them from the country. "They have been told their situation may be clarified in the next 24 hours - whether they will be expelled or allowed to stay in the country," said Bruce Loudon, managing director of group news at Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd, which owns The Australian. "They are in the Palestine Hotel where they are free to move around, but they cannot leave and they cannot work," he told Reuters, adding that the three were well. Several Italian and French journalists were also being held at the hotel. Wilson and Feder had tried to remain independent from the control of US and British military since entering Iraq from Kuwait last Wednesday. Another News Ltd. journalist from Australia, Ian McPhedran, was ordered out of Iraq this week after leaving his hotel in Baghdad without a government-appointed minder.

Fabienne Nerac, the wife of the French cameraman missing in Iraq since 22 March, was promised by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that he would help shed light on Fred Nerac's disappearance. When questioned by Mrs. Nerac after she was clandestinely admitted to a press conference in Brussels, Powell said "I give you my personal promise we will do everything we can to find out what happened". Mrs. Nerac told Powell: "My husband has been reported missing since your forces fired on his jeep." She criticised the fact that she had heard no word from the US authorities despite her requests for information, supported by the French government and London's ITN network, her husband's employer. Earlier in the day, Mrs. Nerac made public the letter she had just sent President Bush, Powell, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks. "I think you may have the answer to many of our questions but you are telling us nothing," she complained in her letter, saying that when her husband's TV crew was trapped between Iraqi and US forces near the southern town of Basra, the latter had fired on the crew's vehicle without seeing or heeding their TV and press markings. The fact that they were caught in the crossfire between Iraqi and Coalition forces was confirmed by an investigation carried out by a security company, AKE, at ITN's request. The enquiry established that the crew's two charred jeeps had been hit by gunfire of various calibres coming from different points. "We have heard the reports," said Central Command spokesman Brig. General Vincent Brooks. "But in this case what I would tell you in all seriousness is that the reports we have is that they were in an area that was involved in combat. We don't know the circumstances surrounding the lack of accountability for them at this point in time, or what the circumstances are. We take the concern seriously, and we're looking into it," he said.

US artillery struck the hotel where Al-Jazeera's offices were located. In a statement faxed to Reuters, Al-Jazeera stated that at least four shells struck the Sheraton hotel in Basra. "Due to this latest development, Al-Jazeera satellite channel said it would be sending yet another letter to the Pentagon stressing the station's concern for the safety and security of its reporters in Iraq," the statement said. "The news network has officially advised the Pentagon in Washington of all relevant details pertaining to its reporters covering the war in Iraq," it added. Al-Jazeera broadcast pictures of the bombed Sheraton, showing a building with a gaping hole in the side.

Al-Jazeera said it would continue to cover the war on Iraq even after the authorities banned two of the network's correspondents from working there. The Qatar-based station had earlier said that none of its eight correspondents would report from Iraq after the ban; however, the network said in a news bulletin that it would continue to broadcast live and taped events, including news conferences by Iraqi officials and air strikes on Iraqi cities - without any commentary. "We were taken completely by surprise by this unexplained and, we believe, unjustified decision. So we will remain in Iraq, but we will not report from there. We will just show the pictures. We're hoping things might change," said an Al-Jazeera official who declined to be named.

Al-Jazeera also stated it was launching a new service to send its news to mobile phones. It would beam news-alerts in both Arabic and English to mobile phones around the world, after both its Arabic and English-language web sites were brought down by pro-American hackers. Al-Jazeera said it would launch reinforced sites later this month. Al-Jazeera called on the United States to come to its aid last week after the attacks on its web sites, and urged the US to ensure the safety of its correspondents in Iraq after US artillery hit a hotel where one of its offices are located. An Al-Jazeera spokesperson said the new mobile servicing would be launched on Wednesday and would be available in 130 countries.

The Bush administration approved a grant of 4 million dollars for a major Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, so that it could resume satellite broadcasting of its "Freedom Television" programme. Broadcasts were suspended in May 2002 after the US subsidy of 7 million dollars approved for 2002 was frozen before any of it was disbursed. Several US senators wrote to President Bush to ask him to unblock the funding. Since US troops were on the ground and US lives were at stake, they argued, the Iraqi opposition group should be supported under all circumstances.

The Los Angeles Times fired one of its photographers covering the war in Iraq because he doctored a photo. In a suspected act of patriotism, Brian Walski admitted to using his computer to merge elements from two separate shots in order to have a better-composed picture showing a British soldier helping Iraqi civilians find shelter during shooting. Several civilians in the background appeared twice. The doctoring, discovered after the photograph was published, violated the newspaper's code of ethics, the Los Angeles Times said.

Journalist Jason Deans reported in the British daily, The Guardian, that Australian-born media tycoon Rupert Murdoch had shown true American patriotism by declaring that it was important that the world learned to "respect" America. Referring to the American people as "we", Murdoch allegedly said the public was far too worried about what the rest of the world thought of the US's declaration of war on Iraq. He said he believed Americans had an "inferiority complex" about world opinion and that Iraqis would eventually welcome US troops as liberators. Murdoch told a conference in California it would be "better to get (the Iraq) war done now" rather than have a longer conflict that could prove more damaging to the world economy. "We worry about what people think about us too much in this country. We have an inferiority complex, it seems," he said at the Milken Institute Global Conference. "I think what's important is that the world respects us, much more important than they love us," added Mr. Murdoch, who is Australian but took American citizenship in 1985 to get around ownership rules that bar foreigners from owning TV stations. His company News Corporation's media interests in the US include the Fox broadcast network, Fox News Channel, the Fox film and TV production studio and the New York Post. Murdoch also warned that the world should be prepared for more terrorist attacks. "It's very possible to see freelance suicide attempts both here and in London, and that would psychologically shake this country up," he said. All of his newspapers backed the war, which he believes is the only way to rid the Middle East of Saddam Hussein. In his Sydney Daily Telegraph earlier this year, he said he thought "Bush is acting very morally, very correctly, and I think he is going to go on with it".

IFJ issued an official protest over "unacceptable discrimination" and restrictions being imposed on journalists covering the war in Iraq when they are not travelling with army units of the United States or Britain. "This is unacceptable discrimination against independent journalism at a time when the pace of war is quickening and reporters are striving to bring millions of people coverage from the front lines," said IFJ. He was particularly concerned at reports that the military forces are singling out groups of journalists who are from countries that are not part of the coalition in support of the war. "We already have a number of journalists who are casualties," said White, "and there may be more dangers ahead if journalists have to find ways of circumventing attempts to stop them from working."



Day 16: Friday, 4 April, 2003

The US military said its forces had secured Baghdad's international airport, after soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division fought their way into the site overnight. Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf threatened a counter-attack on Friday night against coalition forces at the airport who, he said, were completely surrounded. He told a Baghdad news conference Iraq might take "non-conventional" action. A car explosion at a US military checkpoint north-west of Baghdad killed three American soldiers, as well as the driver and a pregnant female passenger. Iraq's state news agency said two Iraqi women were responsible for Friday's suicide attack. Iraqi television showed footage of President Saddam Hussein meeting cheering residents on the streets of Baghdad.

French President Jacques Chirac received the wife of Fred Nerac, the French cameraman employed by the British TV organisation ITN who has been missing in southern Iraq since 22 March. Fabienne Nerac called the meeting "very constructive and positive," and said they had discussed the "various organisations and authorities that have been contacted and the strategy to pursue," adding that she hoped they would shortly receive information from US secretary of state Colin Powell. President Chirac called for "the maximum to be done to establish his situation and locate him."

British government ministers and MPs again accused the British media over its film coverage of the war and its analysis, accusing it of "lacking perspective" and "playing into the hands of Saddam Hussein." Conservative MP Christopher Chope demanded that the publicly-funded BBC pull its reporters out of Baghdad, charging that their reporting of the Iraqi government's statements and reports on war progress meant that "taxpayers were being forced to subsidise Saddam's propaganda machine." Foreign Secretary Jack Straw went as far as to say, that "the kind of media pressure surrounding the Iraq war would have made World War II more difficult to win." He told a meeting of the Newspaper Society "it might have been much harder to maintain the country's morale after Dunkirk if live reports had confronted the public with the brutal reality of German technical and military superiority." Home Secretary David Blunkett chimed in, saying that journalists reporting behind "enemy lines" and giving "blow-by-blow" accounts of events there were treating the US-led coalition forces and the Iraqi regime as "moral equivalents." The Daily Mail's Ross Benson protested that "for Blunkett to suggest in some way that I was a stooge of Saddam Hussein is deeply offensive," and said he was in Baghdad to report "not what the Iraqis tell me but what I personally see."

American journalist Michael Kelly was killed when a military vehicle he was travelling in plunged into a canal while trying to dodge Iraqi shooting near Baghdad airport, US officials confirmed. Kelly was 46 and was working for the Washington Post while holding the editorship of Atlantic Monthly; he was, accordingly, the first "embedded" journalist to die in the war. He was embedded with the Third Infantry Division.



Day 17: Saturday, 5 April, 2003

US tanks and armoured vehicles launched their first raid into Baghdad city - and fought skirmishes with Iraq's elite Special Republican Guard. US rangers and special forces were reported to have taken control of the road leading to Tikrit - the birthplace of the Iraqi president - to the immediate north of Baghdad. In Basra, British forces said they were moving further into the city and destroyed a building where one of Iraq's most important military commanders, Ali Hassan al-Majid - also known as "Chemical Ali" - was thought to be staying.

A bomb hit central Baghdad on Saturday about 100 metres from the Palestine Hotel where many journalists covering the war in Iraq were staying, and where Iraq's information ministry briefings had been held. Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said the explosion was so close she that could feel the impact and see a fiery flash. She said there was one big bang, but that otherwise it had been quiet. The hotel is located in a business and residential area, near other hotels and a government communications centre. Nakhoul said it was unclear whether the bomb targeted anything in the area, or whether it was a stray. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf was at the building earlier in the evening giving television interviews.

The Iraqi information ministry reversed its decision to ban the two Al-Jazeera journalists, Diyar al-Omari and Taysir Alluni, from working in the country. The Council of Europe's secretary-general, Walter Schimmer, recently praised the station's independence, and called for governments to respect its right to freedom of expression.



Day 18: Sunday, 6 April, 2003

British troops bombarded the headquarters of Iraq's Baath party as the massive coalition assault moved into the centre of Basra. A fierce battle erupted in the western outskirts of Baghdad. A BBC reporter said the Iraqis were putting up tough resistance, but he also saw more than a dozen burned out Iraqi tanks and APCs, and reports emerged that civilian vehicles also got caught in the fighting. US officials said the US would start moving its planned post-war civil administration, led by retired general Jay Garner, into Iraq within the next few days.

Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, a translator working for the BBC, was killed in Northern Iraq in another "friendly fire" incident, after a US warplane dropped a bomb on a convoy of Kurdish guerrillas, allied with the US forces, who were travelling close to the city of Mosul. Veteran BBC correspondent John Simpson and producer Tom Giles were also injured. Simpson said he received shrapnel wounds to the ear, while Giles suffered an injury to the foot. The crew was transported to a US hospital in Arbil, northern Iraq, for treatment. According to press reports, at least 18 people were killed or wounded in the incident, including members of US Special Forces who were travelling with the convoy.

Reuters journalist Sebastian Alison described the incident: "A US warplane bombed American special forces and their Kurdish allies on Sunday, killing at least 10 people in a "friendly fire" attack in northern Iraq, witnesses and Kurdish sources said. The BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson said he was travelling in a convoy of eight or ten cars when it came under air attack as it approached an area recently captured from Iraqi forces near the town of Kalak. "I've counted 10 or 12 bodies around us, so there are Americans dead. It was an American plane, dropped the bomb right beside us, I saw it land about 10 to 12 feet (about four metres) away," Simpson told the BBC moments after the blast. A Kurdish source told Reuters that the brother of Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was wounded in the explosion and was in critical condition. The KDP governed two of the three provinces of northern Iraq under Kurdish control since the 1991 Gulf War. Kurdish fighters backed by US forces were slowly advancing out of their enclave towards the Iraqi-controlled cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. A highly placed Kurdish source told Reuters that seven Kurdish fighters, known as Peshmerga, died in the strike, while at least 10 people were wounded, including Wajeeh Barzani. He did not know how many US special forces were killed. The wounded were reported to have been taken to Arbil, which is southeast of Kalak. Reuters reporters said the city's central hospital had been sealed off. The US military said in a statement it was investigating the incident, which occurred about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of the northern city of Mosul. "Coalition aircraft were conducting close air support missions at the time, and were in coordination with ground forces. The circumstances contributing to the incident are under investigation," the statement from US war headquarters said.

David Bloom, an American journalist working for the NBC network, reportedly died of natural causes. Bloom, 39, who was embedded with the US Army's Third Infantry Division, apparently suffered a pulmonary embolism 25 miles south of Baghdad. (A pulmonary embolism is an obstruction of the pulmonary artery in the lungs by a blood clot usually originating from a vein in the leg or pelvis) The most common cause is a clot formed deep in the leg when the legs are immobilised. Bloom rode with the US Army's 3rd Infantry on a high-tech transmission set-up, nicknamed the "Bloom mobile," from which he sent back graphic dispatches. Using state-of-the-art technology, including satellite imaging from the moving vehicle, an exuberant Bloom's vivid descriptions of the war's progress brought television viewers into the desert with him. He was airlifted to a nearby field medical field unit, where he was pronounced dead. Bloom was a native of Edina, Minnesota, and lived in the New York area with his family. He was also employed by NBC's cable affiliate MSNBC. "You couldn't keep him away from a story," Tim Russert, NBC Washington Bureau Chief said, "Whenever something was breaking, he wanted to be there." Bloom was the co-anchor of the weekend "Today" show since March 2000. He was described by his co-anchor Soledad O'Brien as being "a dedicated, tenacious and talented reporter, who died doing what he loved, and what he did best." Bloom was formerly a White House correspondent during the Clinton administration. Former President Bill Clinton said that Bloom's "integrity and good humour will be missed. He was a smart, energetic professional whose enthusiasm for the job was evident in every question he asked and every story he covered."

Reuters reported that a reporter for Russian state television Rossiya said on Sunday he saw US military vehicles roll past a convoy of Russian diplomats and journalists which had come under fire as it was trying to leave Iraq. It had not been established whether Iraqi or US-led forces were responsible for the attack on the convoy, which included Russian ambassador Vladimir Titorenko. As expected, the US Central Command in Qatar said neither US nor British forces were in the area. Rossiya correspondent Alexander Minakov said the convoy encountered "terrible, fierce shooting" outside Baghdad and was forced to stop for an hour, during which some of the four or five injured people received treatment. "It was then that a big convoy of American armoured vehicles appeared in front of us," he told Rossiya. "They came within 50 to 70 metres of us...We came out of our cars and started waving white cloths to attract attention and ask for medical help. But no one stopped. The column passed by us for 40 minutes."



Day 19: Monday, 7 April, 2003

American tanks and armoured vehicles penetrated deep into the centre of the Iraqi capital, raiding President Saddam Hussein's main palace and attacking several other sites. Sporadic fighting continued in Basra as British troops sought to bring Iraq's second city under their control. Fire fights broke out in the centre of Nasiriya - it was believed that the fighting erupted between Iraqi groups, possibly between Fedayeen members faithful to Saddam Hussein and people opposed to him.

Christian Liebig, a German journalist of the weekly magazine Focus and Spanish reporter Julio Anguita Parrado of the newspaper El Mundo, were killed in an Iraqi missile strike south of Baghdad. Liebig and Parrado died in the attack along with two US soldiers, the two publications said in separate statements. Liebig, 35, had been one of only a few German journalists who received permission to be "embedded" with U.S. forces fighting in Iraq, due to the German government's tough opposition to the war which had hurt US-German relations. He had been travelling with the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division and was in a camp the brigade set up as its tactical command and control centre when the missile struck, Focus said. It said soldiers from the brigade had advanced into the centre of Baghdad and into one of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's palaces on Monday morning. "Liebig had stayed behind in the camp for security reasons," the magazine said. In a previous report on the dangers of his assignment, he had quoted a US major as saying: "No story is worth dying for." "Liebig was a careful reporter, not one of the daredevils of the sort who flock to all the world's war zones," Focus said.

Parrado, born in 1971, was normally assigned to New York for El Mundo and covered the 11 September, 2001 attacks. "He has just died, doing his job as a war correspondent," Parrado's father, Julio Anguita, told Spanish state radio. "He was with me three weeks ago and said that he wanted to be on the frontline." Parrado was also assigned with the 3rd Infantry Division as an "embedded" reporter. He had contacted his editors three times on Monday to report on US troops attacking Baghdad. His father is a former leader of the United Left party, one of the most vocal anti-war forces in Spain, where opinion polls showed strong opposition to the war. Parrado was the second El Mundo journalist killed covering wars in the past 17 months. El Mundo correspondent Julio Fuentes was killed on November 19, 2001, in Afghanistan along with Harry Burton and Azizullah Haidari of Reuters and Maria Grazia Cutuli of Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. They were shot dead in an ambush as they drove from Jalalabad to the Afghan capital of Kabul.

20,000 transistor radios distributed by British soldiers in southern Iraq in the past week were set to alone receive the so-called "Voices of the Two Rivers" propaganda station set up by US and British forces, according to the French daily Le Monde. Following the dropping of so-called "black propaganda" aimed mostly at Iraqi soldiers from planes, the "psychological operations" enterprise was targeting hostile civilians with "white propaganda," Le Monde said. "Voices of the Two Rivers," mobile and broadcasting on five different frequencies, broadcasted music and messages devised by the aforementioned "psychological operations" experts with the help of

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