U.S. Forces Want Al-Jazeera Out Of Fallujah

CAIRO, April 9 (IslamOnline.net) - The United States
asked al-Jazeera team to leave Fallujah as one of
conditions for reaching a settlement to the bloody
stand-off in the besieged western Baghdad town Friday,
April 9.

"American forces declared al-Jazeera must leave before
any progress is made to settle the Fallujah stand-off,"
al-Jazeera director general Wadah Khanfar told
IslamOnline.net, citing sources close to the Iraqi
Governing Council.

Khanfar, the former Baghdad bureau chairman of the
station, declined to speculate on reasons for putting
al-Jazeera departure as "part of solving the crisis".

He also denied receiving "any threats or notification
statements" from the U.S. occupation forces recently.

Khanfar also dismissed charges of bias in the coverage
of the Fallujah raids, which resulted in more than 400
people killed including women and children.

"We are just carrying out our work as professionally as
possible. We describe the situation on the ground as
is," Khanfar said.

"We try to be objective. The situation there bear a
sign of humanitarian crisis. We just shed light on
this," he stressed.

A correspondent for the Qatar-based station - speaking
live from Fallujah - had warned Friday against a
"humanitarian crisis" in the town if the U.S. soldiers
did not end their attack on the densely-populated
areas.

He said that local inhabitants are furious over the
inaction of Arab and Muslim countries as well as the
international community.

Only Media Outlet

"We are just carrying out our work as professionally as
possible," Khanfar (Pic courtesy of al-Jazeera.net)

The channel - Khanfar added, is probably the only media
in Fallujah, where its correspondent seized hours of
the channel’s air time to convey the deteriorating
situation over the past few days.

The correspondent in Fallujah said that even besieged
local inhabitants of the town follow the latest
developments in their bastion of resistance through al-
Jazeera.

Corpses are littered in the streets as U.S. warplanes
hit the only hospital and other makeshift medical
centers, he added.

As Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of U.S.
military operations in Iraq, was speaking by phone on
al-Jazeera and insisting that American forces declared
a unilateral ceasefire in Fallujah, the channel was
airing live images of continued air raids by F16
fighter jets on residential neighborhoods of the town.

Kimmitt later dismissed the coverage of the channel for
the crisis as a "series of lies". However, asked by al-
Jazeera anchor about the live images, the U.S.
commander said he was not accusing al-Jazeera of faking
the images, but rather "looked at things differently".

He said the attacks by F16 fighter jets and helicopters
were meant to take out "armed insurgents firing at our
troops". The anchor reminded Kimmitt, however, that
"live coverage showed children and women killed by the
missiles, not armed insurgents".

Observers see the U.S. highly unusual demand for al-
Jazeera to leave Fallujah as a sign of crisis of
credibility the U.S. forces face in the eyes of the
Iraqis as well as people all over the Arab and Islamic
world.

Known for its quality programs, professionalism and
independence, "the CNN of the Arab world" is the most-
watched channel in this part of the world.

Defiant

Khanfar expressed hopes - brimming with fears - that
the three correspondents now in Fallujah "would not
meet the same fate of Tarik Ayyuob".

On April 8, 2003, one year ago, U.S. forces hit with
missiles al-Jazeera office in Baghdad, killing Ayyoub
just a few hours before rolling into the capital.

The channel officials charged the missile attack was a
"deliberate" strike, recalling that the office of the
station had been hit in November 2001 during the U.S.-
led assault on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Khanfar, however, put up a defiant tone, saying the
station’s team - also including a number of engineers
and photographers - would not get out of the town
"voluntarily".

"We are not a political party in the crisis. We are
just media guys," Khanfar said.

Having the station’s headquarters, Qatar also plays
host to the U.S Central Command, which directs the
military invasion of Iraq as of March 20. It has one of
the largest U.S. military bases in the Arab Gulf.

Strained Relations

U.S. Marines fire mortar shells in the outskirts of
Fallujah

Relations between the channel and Washington have been
always running on a collision course.

Al-Jazeera website was downed by hackers since Tuesday,
March 25, a few days after Washington and London
blasted the station for its footages of dead U.S. and
British soldiers and captured PoWs.

During his visit in October last year, Qatari Emir and
the principal shareholder of al-Jazeera, Sheikh Hamad
bin Khalifa al-Thani, was reportedly asked to put
pressure on the channel to curb what the U.S. called
"anti-American coverage".

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed on
November 25 he has seen reports suggesting al-Jazeera
have cooperated with Iraqi resistance fighters
attacking U.S. troops.

"They are hurting us," Rumsfeld was quoted as saying on
Al-Jazeera and Dubai-based Al-Arabiya station.

On November 24, the U.S.-handpicked Governing Council
banned Al-Arabiya from working in Iraq, charging it
with incitement to murder.

Abu Dhabi TV also announced in April last year that its
Baghdad bureau had been hit and broadcast a live report
showing its camera position under attack.

With 19 journalists killed in Iraq, 14 during the war,
five in the aftermath, and two missing presumed dead,
2003 was one of the bloodiest years in recent times for
war reporters.

Sixty-four journalists were killed across the world in
2003, 19 of them in Iraq, according to a report
published by the International Press Institute (IPI) in
March 10.

On August 18, in yet another crime against journalists
in occupied Iraq, U.S. troops shot dead an award-
winning Reuters cameraman while he was filming on
Sunday, August 17, near a U.S.-run detention camp in
Baghdad.

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-04/09/article06.shtml