British journalists killed by roadside bomb in Baghdad

TWO television journalists were killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb yesterday.

CBS News cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, both British citizens, died when the Baghdad military unit with which they were embedded was attacked, according to CBS.

Correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, a joint British-American citizen, was seriously injured in the attack and remains in hospital following surgery.

The attack came during the worst wave of violence to hit Baghdad in days, with eight bombings killing at least 33 people and leaving dozens more wounded.

Iraqi police said the explosion that killed the journalists happened just before noon local time in Tahariyat Square — a mixed area in south-central Baghdad.

In another attack, yesterday, a blast ripped through a bus, killing 10 people working for an organisation opposed to the Iranian regime, and injuring another 12.

The blast occurred just after daybreak near Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad in Diyala province.

The victims were workers at the Ashraf base of the Mujahedeen Khalk, or MEK, which opposes Iran’s regime.

Later, a car bomb placed near Baghdad’s main Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque killed at least nine Iraqi civilians and wounded 25 others.

The bomb exploded in north Baghdad’s Azamiyah neighbourhood and was so powerful it vaporised the vehicle.

Two British soldiers were killed and two injured, meanwhile, in the latest deadly attack by insurgents in southern Iraq.

Their deaths push to nine the number of British service personnel to have died in the increasingly restive city of Basra this month.

The soldiers from the Queen’s Dragoon Guards were killed in the roadside bomb explosion on Sunday night.

A statement on the CBS website said the journalists killed yesterday were reporting from outside their Humvee vehicle and were believed to have been wearing their protective gear.

A spokesman for the British Foreign Office confirmed that two CBS journalists were British.

The news team was reporting on patrol with an infantry combat team, when their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb.

Mr Douglas worked as a CBS cameraman since the early 1990s, covering events in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Rwanda and Bosnia.