Two CNN Workers Killed in Iraq
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
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BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two men working for CNN were shot and killed Tuesday by unidentified assailants outside Baghdad (search), the network said.
CNN said in a broadcast that the pair was returning from an assignment in a two-car convoy that came under attack. It identified the two men as translator-producer Duraid Isa Mohammed and driver Yasser Khatab, both Iraqi citizens.
A CNN cameraman in the second car was grazed in the head by a bullet but was safe, the network said. It said correspondent Michael Holmes was also in the car along with three other people but none of them were hurt.
The vehicles were traveling toward the Baghdad suburb of Mahmoudiya when a rust-colored Opel (search) came up behind one car. A gunman, standing through the sunroof, opened fire at the convoy with an AK-47, the network said.
The car with Holmes and wounded cameraman Scott McWhinnie escaped as an armed security adviser who was with them returned fire.
Iraqi police later found the car with the bodies of Mohammed and Khatab.
"This is very, very disturbing," said Chris Cramer, managing director of CNN International. "This was a premeditated terrorist attack."
There were no markings on the vehicles to indicate they were carrying members of the press, and CNN had no indication that the gunmen knew them, Cramer said.
Holmes said he had no doubt that if the security adviser had not returned fire, everyone in his car would have been killed.
"This was not an attempted robbery," he said. "They were clearly trying to take us out."
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