The price was high

By Afshin Rattansi, who left the Today programme amidst the Kelly Affair and now produces for the 'Top Secret' strand at the London Bureau of Qatar-based satellite channel, Al Jazeera. He won a Sony Award for his outstanding contribution to international journalism in 2002.

US troops in Iraq seize an Al Jazeera cameraman for filming an attack on American soldiers in Mosul - the tape confiscated, he goes on hunger strike to win his release; four Turkish journalists are detained by US troops after one of them took a photograph of a US soldier on a tank; journalists from Iran are detained for over a month; a Japanese reporter filming the bodies of Iraqis killed in a US raid finds himself in an arm-lock. He's forced to the ground before American soldiers give him a sound kicking with their army boots. Soldiers with telescopic sights confuse a Sony video camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and shoot a Palestinian cameraman from Reuters dead. And, still, no Weapons of Mass Destruction are found as the US hires the UN to mop up ahead of 2004's Iowa Caucus.

http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/2809/





US troops to get good morning radio in Baghdad

Agence France Presse

US troops in Iraq will be able to feel that little nearer home from Wednesday when American Forces Network begins live radio broadcasts in Baghdad, the army said.

Soldiers can tune into "Iraqi Freedom Radio" on 107.7 FM from a 1,000-watt signal in the greater Baghdad area.

The station is currently airing American Forces Radio and Television (AFRTS) programming from Los Angeles.

"AFN-Iraq will operate 24 hours a day featuring live shows, news, sports, weather, and commentary throughout its broadcast day," a statement said.

By the end of December, troops at the major garrison locations of Ramadi, Mosul, Tikrit, Balad, Kirkuk and Tallil will also be able to capture the signal originating in Baghdad.

"The establishment of AFN-Iraq continues the 61-year tradition of AFRTS serving US forces wherever they are deployed," said Lieutenant Colonel Perry Nouis, AFN-Iraq's commander.

"Troops consistently rate AFRTS among the top morale-boosting services they receive," he said.

Colonel William Darley, Combined Joint Task Force-7's public affairs officer, said AFN-Iraq would provide "a great capability to keep our forces throughout the country informed about the dramatic progress being made in Operation Iraqi Freedom".





No Iraqi "resistance" at media hotel in Baghdad: reporter

Agence France Presse

Tayssir Alluni, a Spanish reporter who worked in Iraq for Qatari television station Al-Jazeera, on Tuesday told a Spanish judge there was no Iraqi "resistance" either in or around the Palestine Hotel where two cameramen were killed after a US attack during the conflict.

Alluni, accused by judge Baltasar Garzon of belonging to al-Qaeda, was giving evidence in a preliminary inquest into the death of Spanish cameraman Jose Couso, killed along with a Ukrainian colleague from Reuters television when US tanks fired on the hotel on April 8.

"I am one of the only journalists to have gone right round the hotel and there was no resistance," Alluni told reporters at the court afterwards after judge Guillermo Ruiz Polanco asked "if there was any resistance around or inside the hotel, (or) if there were any shots being fired."

Washington's version of events is that a tank fired on the building after locating a sniper they believed was coordinating Iraqi fire from the hotel.

Alluni took refuge in the hotel after US forces bombarded his television station's office, killing one reporter in the process.

"I was afraid they would continue firing on the hotel. It was one of the worst days of my life," Alluni said.

"It was a message from the Americans to the international press."

Couso's family are seeking damages from the 64th armoured regiment of the US third infantry division.

The Popular Party of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, which strongly backed the US-led intervention in Iraq, last month rejected an opposition motion condemning the killings as well as calls for an enquiry into Couso's death.

Alluni, a Spaniard of Syrian origin arrested on September 5 at his family home in the southern city of Grenada, gained notoriety for an interview he conducted with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Suffering from a heart defect, he was released on bail on October 23.

Alluni was one of 35 people -- including bin Laden -- charged in September with links to, or membership of, the Islamic network.