A file photo for Halani

BAGHDAD, June 1 (IslamOnline.net) - The U.S. occupation forces attacked late Saturday, May 31, IslamOnline.net correspondent Ali Halani, driver Mazen al-Ebeidi and Samir Sobhi, a journalist accompanying Halani, who were filming some places in al-Bayaa’ street in Baghdad. 

Halani said that a U.S. patrol stopped their car and snatched their digital camera,  while five soldiers pointed their weapons at them, took them forcibly to an out-of-the-street post and treated them inhumanely.

He said the soldiers violently pushed him and knocked him against the car, leaving him with bruises covering his arms, knees and his collarbone.

Halani said that the soldiers released them after half an hour of threats and abuse, but shunned giving their camera back.

“The patrol’s captain even refused to listen to us and ordered us to have our mouths shut,” Halani said.

“If you do not leave the place within 30 seconds, I will arrest you and your colleagues and send you to prison,” the U.S. captain threatened.

Shortly afterwards, Halani headed to the U.S.-run press office in Al-Rashid hotel in Baghdad to report this incident to them but to no avail.

Halani, a Somali, worked for other reputable international and local news agencies and newspapers and is now IOL correspondent in Iraq.

This is not the first time that the U.S. occupation forces attack journalists in a bid to muzzle free press.

During the U.S.-led war on Iraq, U.S. missiles hit the Baghdad offices of Al-jazeera television early on April 8, killing one staff and wounding another in what the Qatar-based Arabic news network charged was a deliberate strike.

Al-jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayub was killed and Zuheir al-Iraqi was hit in the neck by shrapnel.

Spain's Tele 5 (Telecinco) television’s cameraman Jose Couso, 37, and Reuters' Warsaw-based Ukrainian cameraman Taras Protsyuk, 35, were killed when a U.S. tank shelled the Palestine Hotel on April 8 in the Iraqi capital, wounding four other correspondents.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) charged that the attacks were crimes of war.

"The bombing of hotels where journalists are staying and targeting of Arab media is particularly shocking events in a war which is being fought in the name of democracy," said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White in a statement issued shortly after the deaths were reported.

"Those who are responsible must be brought to justice," White underlined.