- (AFP) -- Berlin: United States troops who on April 8
fired on the main Baghdad hotel occupied by journalists, killing two, had
called in fighter planes to bomb the building, a German journalist who
witnessed the event says. "The tank commander called for support from
the air. But he did not know the building was a hotel," said Ulrich
Tilgner, on ZDF public television. A US journalist, "embedded"
with the troops, told the Americans the Palestine Hotel was used as a base
by the international media and the strike was called off, Tilgner said.
The US troops who killed two television journalists claimed they were fired
on by Iraqi gunmen who had taken refuge in the hotel, but journalists at
the scene denied this. A cameraman from France3 television filmed the tank
as it turned and raised its main gun, waited for about two minutes and
then fired.
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