US warplanes bomb Al Jazeera office, kill journalist



Al-Jazeera correspondent Tariq Ayoub was killed on Tuesday when two US missiles struck the Baghdad offices of the Qatar-based channel.

"We regret to inform you that our cameraman and correspondent Tariq Ayoub was killed this morning during the US missile strike on our Baghdad office," the Qatar-based channel said in a statement read out during its news bulletin.

Another cameraman, Zuheir Iraqi, was slightly wounded with shrapnel to his neck.

Ayoub giving his last report minutes before the US attack

They were both standing on the roof getting ready for a live broadcast amid intensifying bombardment of the city when the building was hit by two missiles, according to Tayseer Allouni, another correspondent.

Cameraman Iraqi came down bleeding, but Ayoub did not show up. “I ran up as the shells were still falling and crawled on the roof and shouted for Tariq, but he did not answer,” Allouni said.

“It seems that we have become a target,” Tayseer Allouni, Al-Jazeera correspondent said. Another of Jazeera's Baghdad correspondents Majed Abdel Hadi called the U.S. missile strike and Ayoub's death a "crime".

"I will not be objective about this because we have been dragged into this conflict," he said, visibly upset. "We were targeted because the Americans don't want the world to see the crimes they are committing against the Iraqi people."

Ayoub. aged 35, was married with one daughter. He travelled to Baghdad only five days ago to join the Al-Jazeera team from the channel's Amman office where he had worked as a financial correspondent for three years. Originally from Palestine, he had also worked for the Jordan Times and the international news agency Associated Press.