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Point-blank execution of reporter sparks fears for westerners

July 7 2003

Shot dead ... 24-year-old British cameraman Richard Wild. Photo: Pool

The point-blank shooting of an unarmed British reporter on a Baghdad street and a grenade attack on a UN compound raised concern that Iraq's worsening insurgency - until now targeting only coalition troops and Iraqis accused of US collaboration - will spread to westerners in general.

US troops have reportedly suffered casualties in the Iraqi town of Ramadi where they were ambushed by rocket-propelled grenades overnight, a US military spokesman said.

The spokesman in Baghdad said there were reports of casualties but he did not know how many, or the severity of the injuries.

"There was an ambush involving RPGs and there were casualties. The operation is over at this point," the spokesman said. "As I understand it, US forces were ambushed."

Arabic channel al-Jazeera reported loud explosions at the US military area at the eastern entrance of Ramadi, 100km west of Baghdad.

The American spokesman could not say whether the attack was on a patrol or a US facility.

On Saturday, seven recruits to a US-backed Iraqi police force were killed in Ramadi when a remote-controlled device exploded outside a police station where they had just graduated from police training.

US-led occupying forces have been coming under almost daily attack in recent weeks, more than two months after US President George W Bush declared major combat over on May 1 after toppling Saddam Hussein in April.

A US soldier was killed in Baghdad yesterday as he was waiting to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University. He was shot once in the head at close range in the third such assault in nine days. The style was coldly similar to the killing of 24-year-old Richard Wild, a British freelance cameraman, who was shot in the head outside a Baghdad museum on Saturday.

US troops on patrol in Baghdad and other areas have been attacked several times a day, and Iraqi police and civilians perceived to be working with the occupying forces also have been targeted.

US army Major William Thurmond said it was too early to tell whether a pattern was emerging that would suggest insurgents are targeting foreign civilians, but he said such a strategy could thwart news gathering and humanitarian relief efforts.

"Hopefully they're isolated events and we won't have to face them in the future," Major Thurmond said. "It might work to the advantage of someone who's trying to fight the coalition."

Richard Wild, who arrived in the country two weeks ago, was carrying no apparent sign that he was a reporter. He was killed by a single pistol shot fired into the base of his skull from close range, colleagues said. The assailant fled into the crowd and was not apprehended.

The US soldier killed at Baghdad University also was shot at close range. The soldier from the army's 1st Armored Division was evacuated to a combat support hospital after the midday shooting. He died later, the US military said.

In a similar incident, an assailant with a pistol shot and critically injured a US soldier in the neck on June 27 as he shopped on a Baghdad street.

Yesterday, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the United Nation's International Organisation for Migration office in Mosul, 385km north-west of Baghdad. The grenade slammed into a wall and damaged several cars, said Hamid Abdel-Jabar, a spokesman for the UN special representative in Iraq.

"There's no place for that in any civilised part of the world," Major Thurmond said. "As soon as we get hold of them, they're gone. We'll find them. We'll attack them. And if necessary we'll kill them."

Meanwhile, the United States agreed today to release 11 Turkish special forces detained during a raid in northern Iraq - ending a standoff that strained efforts by the NATO allies to repair relations frayed over the Iraq war, a Turkish official said.

A group calling itself Wakefulness and Holy War claimed responsibility today for attacks on US troops in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim-dominated town 56km west of Baghdad.

"We are carrying out operations against the American occupation here in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities," said the statement, released on Iran-financed al-Alam TV in Baghdad. "Saddam and America are two faces of the same coin."

And US forces yesterday killed two insurgents who fired a rocket-propelled grenade as they drove toward an army outpost in the capital yesterday.

Insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade into a US army compound in the town of Abu Sada al-Sagra yesterday, slightly injuring one soldier.

Reuters and AP




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