Foreign Journalists Killed in Ambush South of Baghdad

A leading Polish war correspondent and an Algerian colleague were killed south of this capital city Friday when their car was raked by machine-gun fire on a remote stretch of road that is notorious for deadly ambushes.

Waldemar Milewicz, 48, an award-winning television journalist who had covered conflicts in Bosnia, Cambodia and Rwanda, was killed about 30 miles south of Baghdad as he and his crew were driving to cover fighting in Najaf. Video editor Mounir Bouamrane also was slain as he tried to pull Milewicz from the disabled car, a cameraman wounded in the attack said.

Milewicz and Bouamrane were seated in the rear of the car when “suddenly we found ourselves under heavy machine-gun fire,” said Polish cameraman Jerzy Ernst, who was shot in the hand. “All of us crouched. The driver didn’t stop but the windows were shattered.”

The car’s tires were also hit by gunfire, which came from an unknown source, and the vehicle rolled to a stop.

“Mounir and the driver jumped out of the car and were trying to pull out Milewicz but then they started shooting again,” Ernst said. It was then that the video editor was killed.

Milewicz and the others had arrived in Iraq a day earlier and driven out of Baghdad on Friday morning in a new Daewoo sedan with a sign reading “Press” in English on the windshield.

Ernst said that the highway to Najaf was blocked because of troop movements and the driver decided to take an alternate route. The driver was not injured in the attack.

The shooting occurred in an area where a number of Westerners have been killed in ambushes. Military officials believed the assailants were insurgents. Iraqi residents of the nearby towns of Mahmoudiya and Latifiya blamed the attack on U.S. helicopters -- a claim that has also been made in past drive-by killings of Westerners.

“We heard gunfire targeting the car and for sure the Americans are behind it, and always blaming us for such an attack,” said Abo Jassim, 38.

Milewicz had worked for state-owned TPV since 1984, mostly covering armed conflicts. He won an international award for his coverage of the war in Chechnya, Russia’s breakaway republic.

Milewicz and his crew were among the few members of the Polish news corps who had ventured beyond Camp Babil, the fortified base where Polish troops are stationed.

He once told an interviewer that he feared little for his safety while covering violent events.

“I don’t really think much of the fact that I’m risking my life,” Milewicz said. “When something is going on, I simply have to be there. That’s my job.”

Polish officials were shocked and saddened Friday.

“Great pity -- one of Poland’s most distinguished reporters died,” said Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. “He probably believed providence would be guarding him.... It is a great loss for all of us.”

Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka said that in recent years, Milewicz had become the symbol of “action journalism.”

“He went to many places to make us understand better the fate of people in countries torn by conflict. And he himself had become a victim of such a conflict.”

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Morin reported from Baghdad and Kasprzycka from Warsaw. Researcher Ammar Mohammed in Latifiya also contributed to this report.