Six Iraqis Killed by Mortars Likely Meant for U.S. Troops

Six Iraqis were killed and nearly 60 wounded late Saturday night when unknown assailants fired three mortar rounds into a U.S.-protected prison here west of Baghdad.

On Sunday, a Reuters television cameraman covering the aftermath of the attack was killed outside the facility by U.S. soldiers who apparently mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. His last images, Reuters reported, show an American tank driving toward him. Shots ring out from the tank, and his camera falls to the ground.

The cameraman, Mazen Dana, a Palestinian who had worked for Reuters for several years, is the first journalist to die in Iraq since July 5, when a British freelance cameraman was killed by sniper fire outside a Baghdad museum.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said the journalist was pronounced dead on arrival at a military medical facility. The incident was under investigation, he said.

“Coalition forces engaged an individual in the vicinity of the Abu Ghraib prison,” spokesman Sgt. Danny Martin said in a statement released Sunday night. “The individual was later identified as a reporter.”

The mortar attack and death of Dana underscored how, in Iraq’s still violent and unpredictable climate, attacks often claim unintended victims. The assault on the prison, presumably meant for U.S. troops, killed only Iraqis. The cameraman, married with children, appears to have been mistaken for an insurgent.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led occupation administration faced fresh challenges to restoring Iraq’s infrastructure. A new fire broke out late Saturday on the main export pipeline to Turkey, one day after a bombing sparked another fire on it. The cause of the new blaze was not immediately determined. L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator of Iraq, said Sunday that shutting down the pipeline was costing Iraq $7 million a day.

It also had financial effects elsewhere. In New York, crude oil prices for September delivery rose as much as 55 cents to $31.60 a barrel.

In Baghdad, a large water main broke Sunday, flooding a street with water at least six feet deep. The break may have been an act of sabotage; local residents reported that two men on a motorcycle were seen leaving a black bag near the pipe shortly before it burst.

Officials with the Coalition Provisional Authority said only that the main was “ruptured.” Faris Abdul Razaq Asam, deputy mayor of Baghdad, said crews were working on it.

The mortar attack on Abu Ghraib prison began about 11 p.m. Saturday, said Spc. Anthony Reinoso, a military spokesman. About 1,000 inmates are housed at the prison, and 1,000 U.S. soldiers work at or operate out of the facility, according to Spc. Rachel Brune. No Americans were reported harmed in the attack.

The prison, notorious during Saddam Hussein’s regime for overcrowding and squalid conditions, reopened last month after undergoing renovations. Tents on the grounds still house some detainees. Both common criminals and people accused of launching attacks against coalition forces are being held at Abu Ghraib.

One of the injured, Musab Mohammed Jasim, 26, of the northern city of Mosul, described scenes of chaos and terror after the mortars hit.

He and other prisoners ran out of their tents after hearing the first distant explosion, only to be hit by a second shell, which fell nearby. He said he believed the second blast came two minutes after the first.

“It was a terrible attack. All the people in the camp were shouting ‘Allahu akbar,’ ” or God is great, Jasim said from his bed Sunday at the U.S. Army’s 28th Combat Support Hospital at Camp Dogwood, near Baghdad. “After the first explosion, we went out to see what was happening. We just heard the sound of the second explosion.

“It fell in the middle of us. I felt that everyone was falling on the ground. I saw people bleeding all around and lying on the ground,” said Jasim, who suffered shrapnel wounds to his shoulder and lower leg.

Amid the panic, he and others ran to the outer metal fence, shouting for help from American guards. “I collapsed near the fence and lay there for about 15 minutes until they came for me,” said Jasim, who said he wound up at Abu Ghraib after U.S. soldiers searching for weapons raided his house last month.

After the mortar attack, U.S. soldiers returned fire into a field west of the prison, according to nearby residents. The wounded were evacuated by Apache helicopters throughout the early morning hours, residents said.

About a dozen reporters converged on the prison Sunday afternoon, hoping to gather additional information about the attacks. But Dana, the Reuters cameraman, and others were turned away at the front entrance by soldiers with the 72nd Military Police Company.

After leaving the front gate, Dana and a colleague drove their blue BMW about 200 yards west of the prison wall and stopped along an access road to film the facility from a wide angle. Dana was hit while standing in front of his car, holding his camera.

Soldiers from two U.S. tanks attempted to resuscitate him for 10 minutes, while a distraught colleague of the journalist buried his head in his hands and cried. Soldiers lifted the body into one of the tanks and drove back to the prison.

Dana, 43, had worked primarily in the West Bank city of Hebron but frequently traveled to the world’s hot spots.

“Mazen was one of Reuters’ finest cameramen, and we are devastated by his loss,” said Stephen Jukes, Reuters global head of news.

Though the city of Abu Ghraib is considered a stronghold of support for Hussein, attacks aimed at U.S. troops are taking a growing toll on the local population. Two weeks ago, mortar fire intended for a military vehicle killed an Iraqi walking home with his son.

While no U.S. soldiers were injured by the mortars at Abu Ghraib, insurgents continued to inflict casualties on American forces and their allies elsewhere in Iraq this weekend.

On Saturday, a Danish soldier and two Iraqis were killed in a gun battle near the southern city of Basra, the British military reported.

In Baghdad, two American soldiers were shot Saturday as they left a restaurant, a U.S. military spokeswoman said. They managed to drive themselves to get treatment.