WASHINGTON — Whistleblower website WikiLeaks released video Monday of a US military Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad three years ago which killed two Reuters employees and a number of other people.
The gun camera footage includes audio conversations between Apache pilots and ground controllers in which they identify the men in a Baghdad street as armed insurgents and ask for permission to open fire.
Wikileaks said it had obtained and decrypted the video "from a number of military whistleblowers" but did not provide any further information about how it got ahold of the footage, which it posted at Wikileaks.org and on YouTube.
The July 2007 footage shows a number of men on a Baghdad street including two who were later identified as Reuters news employees Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh.
The Apache pilots tell controllers they have spotted "five to six individuals with AK-47s" and ask for permission to "engage".
At least two individuals in the video do appear to be carrying weapons but the pilots appear to mistake a camera carried by one of the Reuters employees as a rocket-propelled grenade launcher or RPG.
The Apache pilots open fire with the helicopter's cannon after which one says there are a "bunch of bodies lying there".
"Look at those dead bastards," one says. Another replies: "Nice".
Shortly afterwards, a van pulls up to pick up the dead and the wounded and is fired upon by the Apaches.
Two children in the van were injured and evacuated by US troops who arrived later on the scene.
A US military official told AFP the video "doesn't give new information, it just gives footage".
"Since 2007, we acknowledged everything that's in the video," the official said. "We acknowledged that the strike took place and that there were two Reuters employees (killed)".
"We know that two kids were injured," the official said.
"The RPG in the video is real," the official added. "We had insurgents and reporters in an area where US forces were about to be ambushed.
"At the time we weren't able to discern whether (the Reuters employees) were carrying cameras or weapons," the official said.
In a statement, Reuters news editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said "the deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones.
"We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognize the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular," Schlesinger said.
"The video released today via Wikileaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result," he said.
WikiLeaks, run by Sunshine Press, describes itself as a "non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public".
AFP
