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
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"We are just carrying out our work as professionally as possible," Khanfar (Pic courtesy of al-Jazeera.net)
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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
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U.S. Marines fire mortar shells in the outskirts of Fallujah
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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.
