BRUSSELS, April 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As two journalists breathed their last in an American shelling of a Baghdad hotel solely inhibited by reporters covering the U.S.-led war, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) charged Tuesday, April 8, that the attacks were possible crimes of war.

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 in the Iraqi capital, wounding four other correspondents.

This came shortly after Al-Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayyoub died of his injuries following an American missile attack on station's Baghdad offices.

The Qatar-based channel added one of its cameramen was hit in the neck by shrapnel in the blast which it charged was a deliberate strike.

"The bombing of hotels where journalists are staying and targeting of Arab media are 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.

The Brussels-based lobby, representing 500,000 journalists in more than 100 countries, said the inquiry should also cover U.S. attacks which destroyed the Baghdad offices of the Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV networks.

The U.S. military command denied taking aim at the offices of the networks and said it had cautioned journalists from the start that working from Baghdad would be risky.

Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said at the Qatar-based Command that "It's too early to be able to say exactly what happened at that site. It's most unfortunate, indeed. We certainly know that we don't target journalists."

"Our office’s location has been clearly known to the Americans all along. There are very clear signs in yellow reading ‘Press’ covering the building from all sides and on the roof," one al-Jazeera correspondent who survived the attack charged.

"The pilot saw us, fired one missile, circled and returned to turn a second missile.

"The Americans should find another plausible explanation for targeting us," he added.

Washington had accused the channel of being biased against the U.S.-led forces by running footages of the war civilian victims and allowing Iraqi officials to speak on its screen.

Reuters editor in chief Geert Linnebank criticized U.S. forces for firing on the high-rise Palestine hotel, calling into question the "judgment of advancing U.S. troops who have known all along that this hotel is the main base for almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad."

In a statement from its London headquarters, Reuters said that another three of its journalists at the hotel had been injured in the attack. They were among 18 Reuters journalists in Baghdad.

The IFJ called for a review of the protection afforded to the media in war zones in the aftermath of the Iraq conflict.

"This war has been the most televised conflict in history," said White, "but the protection afforded to journalists and media staff is prehistoric by comparison".

The IFJ says that 12 journalists and media staff have died in the Iraq war so far.

"We are still waiting for a satisfactory explanation for the attack on the ITN crew at the start of the war in which we think three colleagues were killed," said White.

The IFJ says that there is eyewitness testimony accusing the U.S. of deliberately firing upon clearly marked television vehicles.

"The United Nations system and the international media community must be fully engaged in finding out what happened in these cases and action must be taken to ensure it never happens again," said White.

"We can expect denials of intent from the military, but what we really want is the truth."

"Barbaric Massacres"

A flak jacket and a helmet sit near a pool of blood by a shattered window in the Reuters TV office on the 15th floor of Palestine Hotel

- Wounded reporters