Don’t Bomb Us
I still remember that night in Baghdad. I was with Tayseer Allouni, Maher Abdullah and Tariq Ayoob (mercy on their souls) and we were working late in the office near the Tigris river. When the American tanks started showing up just across the river on the other bank, the question of them bombing us (the press) arose. I said of course they wouldn’t bomb us – after all, they were here to “liberate” and help Iraq. Little did did I know! The other guys said it was a possibility that we may come under attack but still, they decided to go on with their work because as they put it, it’s our responsibility and duty to keep the world informed and give them the truth!
What happened next was nothing less than a scene out of a bad American movie – Tariq was dead because they DID bomb us! Tayseer, later, was put behind bars on some stupid charges and Al-Jazeera office was closed in Baghdad by the Iraqi government.
Federation of Journalists accuses US over killing Al-Jazeera reporter
Report, IFJ, 24 November 2005
According to the IFJ, which has been campaigning for justice in some 16 cases where journalists and media staff have died at the hands of US troops in the Iraq conflict, there was no US investigation or proper report on why the attack in which journalist Tareq Ayyoub was killed took place.
“It now looks that more and more this was a vindictive and deliberate attack on a media outlet and one that should not go unpunished,” said White. The aircraft missile strike on the Al-Jazeera office took place despite the fact that US officials were informed in advance of the exact location of the office because Al-Jazeera feared a repeat of an earlier US army strike in Kabul during the Afghanistan conflict in 2001, in which the Al-Jazeera offices were destroyed. No one was hurt in that attack.