Journalist killed on camera-(Cheering Bradley crowd meets 7.62mm)

A PALESTINIAN television journalist was killed today as he was giving a live report to camera on deadly clashes between US forces and insurgents in the heart of the Iraqi capital.

Residents of his home town in the West Bank watched in horror as Mazen al-Tomaisi, who worked for Saudi television Akhbariya and for the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya, went down.

Mr Tomaisi, 28, was killed when a US helicopter fired missiles on a mob which had gathered round a US tank in Baghdad that had been set ablaze in a car bomb attack, one of a string of bombings across the capital today.

Blood spattered across the cameraman's lens and screams were heard by viewers of the Al-Arabiya report.

Mr Tomaisi, from the West Bank town of Idna, is the fourth Palestinian journalist killed in Iraq.

An Iraqi cameraman and an Iraqi photographer were also slightly wounded by flying shrapnel during the attack.

An Iraqi official later said a total of 13 people were killed, including two children, and 55 were wounded during the battle in Haifa Street, a suspected bastion of Saddam Hussein loyalists, where insurgents and US troops clash regularly.

More details:

At least 12 people were killed, including two children, and 41 wounded during intense fighting around Haifa Street, considered a bastion of Saddam Hussein loyalists, according to doctors at two local hospitals. Among the injured were three women and six children.

Mazen al-Tomaisi, a Palestinian working for Saudi and Al-Arabiya television died and two photographers wounded in a US helicopter attack during the clashes, media sources said.

The fighting erupted after a suspected car bomb exploded two hours before dawn in Haifa Street where insurgents and US troops clash regularly, a US military source said.

Heavy machine-gun and assault rifle fire reverberated across the street for three hours and a tank was mobilised to support US troops, home to an urban war terrain of high-rise apartment buildings, perfect for snipers.

As the sun rose at 6:30 am (0230 GMT), a car bomb struck the tank, wounding four people, a military spokeswoman said, but was unable to confirm if the casualties were American.

Witnesses saw an angry mob pelt the burning tank with stones and dance around the armoured vehicle as one man climbed on top, waving a black flag emblazoned with the name of Zarqawi's group Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War), while veiled women ululated.

A pair of US helicopters then swooped down over the neighborhood and fired missiles and heavy machine-gun fire into the mob, scattering at least five corpses across the ground.

The US military said the tank was destroyed from the air "to prevent looting and harm to the Iraqi people".

Simultaneously, two drivers were shot dead trying to ram cars rigged with explosives into the high-security Green Zone and the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, Iraqi and US sources said.

Iraqi national guardsmen opened fire on a vehicle as it sped towards a checkpoint outside the seat of the interim government and the US embassy, killing the driver, a national guard source said.

Another man was also killed trying to smash his car through the compound of the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad was killed, the US military said.

An Iraqi police colonel also died in a car bombing on his way to work, a ministry spokesman said.

US Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan said from late Saturday to early Sunday, over a dozen mortars and rockets had been fired into or around the Green Zone, unable to give any details on damage.

Insurgents frequently shell the heavily-fortified Green Zone with mortars.

"Dozens of mujahedeen missiles were launched against scattered targets, particularly in Baghdad and other Sunni provinces," said the internet statement signed by "the military branch of the Tawhid wal Jihad".

"They targeted the American headquarters and the traitor Iraqi government and some embassies of allied countries," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified.

Zarqawi, a fugitive Jordanian Islamist who has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head, has already claimed responsibility for a string of attacks in Iraq, including the beheading of foreign hostages.

The country kidnapping crisis grinded on as Italy's foreign minister said he was still hopeful that two Italian women hostages would be released, as a purported ultimatum by Al-Qaeda-linked kidnappers was about to expire.

There has been no word on the fate of two French journalists held hostage by extremists since August 20.

http://tinyurl.com/5889m

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040912-0551-iraq-al-zarqawi.html

Al-Zarqawi militant group claims responsibility for attacks in central Baghdad

The Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, boasted in an Internet statement that it held the initiative in the Iraqi insurgency and possessed the "capability to surprise the enemy and hit its strategic installations at the right time and place."

Militants struck Baghdad's Green Zone, the administration district, with a heavy barrage of mortars, and a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the city's Abu Ghraib prison. Heavy clashes broke out on Haifa Street, during which a car bomb destroyed a U.S. Bradley armored vehicle. A U.S. helicopter fired on the burning Bradley to destroy it, killing and wounding several people who had gathered around it.

At least 24 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in violence across the city on Sunday, the Iraqi Health Ministry said.

The statement by Tawhid and Jihad, posted on the group's Web site, could not be verified.

"On Sunday morning, tens of holy fighters' rockets were launched to strike various targets, in Baghdad in particular and in the rest of the Sunni provinces in general, aimed at the headquarters of the American administration and the treacherous Iraqi government," the group said.

The statement was titled "God is Great. The Lions of Tawhid and Jihad invade the Americans in Haifa Street."

The statement claimed to have attacked Abu Ghraib prison in order to secure the release of the inmates, particularly "the noble pure women of (the Prophet) Muhammad's community."

Since it was revealed that U.S. soldiers had sexually abused male prisoners in Abu Ghraib, fears have been expressed over the prison's female occupants.

Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is one of the most wanted militants in Iraq and has claimed responsibility for several major attacks on U.S.-led forces and the interim Iraqi government. Tawhid and Jihad – Arabic for "monotheism and holy war" – has beheaded several foreign hostages.

U.S. authorities consider al-Zarqawi an ally of Osama bin Laden but say he runs his own terrorist operation.

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