BAGHDAD, Iraq – Two Britons working as members of a CBS News television crew were killed yesterday and an American correspondent for the network was critically injured when a military patrol they were accompanying was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.
A U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter also were killed in the attack on a joint U.S. and Iraqi patrol that killed the two CBS journalists, and six other soldiers were wounded, a statement by the U.S. military command said.
Police said at least 31 other people were killed in bombings and shootings in one of the worst days of bloodshed in the capital in weeks.
Also yesterday, the top U.S. commander in Iraq has decided to move reserve troops now deployed in Kuwait into the Anbar province in western Iraq to help quell a surge in attacks in the Sunni insurgent stronghold, two U.S. officials said.
Although some soldiers from the 3,500-member brigade in Kuwait have moved into Iraq in recent months, Army Gen. George Casey has decided to send in the remainder of the unit from the Army's 1st Armored Division after consultations with Iraqi officials in recent days, the officials said.
At least some of the troops are likely to be sent to Ramadi, where a Pennsylvania National Guard brigade is scheduled to rotate out this month. The Pennsylvania troops, along with Marine units, have been trying to quell a surge in violence in the city. Several senior officers in Ramadi have said in recent interviews that they are engaged in almost daily combat and that al-Qaeda has been recruiting local residents to carry out assassinations of local sheiks and officials who cooperate with U.S. forces.
The confirmation that the number of U.S. forces in Iraq would grow came on a day of soaring violence in Baghdad.
CBS News said that the journalists had left the Humvee in which they were traveling and were wearing body armor when the attack occurred at 10:30 a.m. in a middle-class neighborhood in eastern Baghdad.
CBS News said Paul Douglas, 48, a cameraman, and James Brolan, 42, a soundman, were slain. Correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, who has worked long periods in CBS' Baghdad bureau in the past three years, sustained serious injuries and underwent emergency surgery at a military hospital in Baghdad, CBS News said. The statement said Dozier was in critical condition, but that doctors were “cautiously optimistic about her progress.”
CBS News President Sean McManus said Dozier underwent a second round of surgery in Baghdad and that the network hoped she would be evacuated to Germany as soon as possible. Doctors successfully removed shrapnel from Dozier's head, but her more serious injuries are to her lower body, CBS News correspondent David Martin reported.
Later in the day, Dozier was airlifted by a Black Hawk helicopter to the main U.S. air base in Iraq at Balad, 50 miles north of the capital, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said. Most seriously wounded Americans are airlifted aboard specially equipped transport jets directly from Balad to a military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany, and from there on to hospitals in the United States.
“This is a devastating loss for CBS News,” McManus said in a statement issued in New York. “Kimberly, Paul and James were veterans of war coverage who proved their bravery and dedication every day. They always volunteered for dangerous assignments and were invaluable in our attempt to report the news to the American public. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the families of Paul and James, and we are hoping and praying for a complete recovery by Kimberly.”
Iraqi police said the attack was one of a sequence of at least eight bombings, which, together with a series of drive-by shootings, killed at least 33 people and wounded dozens of others. The fresh upsurge in violence has caused hundreds of deaths in the capital in recent weeks.
The police said 12 Iraqis died and 25 were wounded in a noontime car bombing outside the Abu Hanifa mosque in Adhamiya, a Sunni stronghold in north Baghdad. They said at least seven others died and 20 were wounded when a bomb planted in a parked minivan exploded at the entrance to an open-air market clothes market in Khadhimiya, a mainly Shiite area across the Tigris River from Adhamiya.
At least 25 people were killed in bombing and shooting attacks elsewhere in the country. Ten Iraqis working at a camp for members of an exiled Iranian communist group died shortly after dawn when a roadside bomb hit their minivan near Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad.
Two British soldiers were killed Sunday night when an armored Land Rover hit a roadside bomb in the southern city of Basra. The British deaths brought to nine the number of British troops killed in Iraq this month, one of Britain's highest monthly death tolls.
The deaths of the two CBS crew members raised to more than 70 the number of journalists – including at least 47 Iraqis – killed in Iraq in the 38 months since the U.S.-led invasion.
Yesterday's attack was the second time this year that a U.S. television network crew embedded with U.S. troops has been hit by a roadside bomb. ABC News' “World News Tonight” co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Douglas Vogt were seriously injured Jan. 29 while accompanying a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol. ABC News has said that Woodruff is still recovering from serious head and neck injuries, and Vogt has returned to his home in France to convalesce.
The U.S. military command in Baghdad said the CBS journalists were embedded with a unit of the 4th Infantry Division, responsible for security in wide areas in and around Baghdad.
The statement by the U.S. command did not specify whether the blast took the form of a suicide attack or a bomb left in a parked vehicle. Iraqi employees of The New York Times who visited the scene said the blast left a crater in the road and a carpet of broken glass, and shattered windows in neighboring homes and shops.
The upsurge in attacks in Baghdad yesterday came as the new government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which took office 10 days ago, continued to struggle with a step U.S. officials here see as crucial to curbing the violence racking the country: filling the three key security posts in his Cabinet at the interior, defense and national security ministries. The positions were left vacant when his Cabinet was sworn in May 20, with key Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish groups unable to agree on nominees.
The fresh momentum U.S. officials have said the government needs in cracking down on the violence is unlikely to be achieved while jockeying over the security posts continues, U.S. officials have said.
The Washington Post contributed to this report.
