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CNN Live At Daybreak
NBC News Bureau in Baghdad Bombed
Aired September 25, 2003 - 06:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A hotel where the NBC News bureau is based in Baghdad is hit by a bomb. One person is dead. An NBC sound man is slightly injured.
Let's get more details now from our Michael Holmes, who is in Baghdad.
Michael -- we heard from the commander of the ground troops in Baghdad. Is there any more information in terms of who might be responsible or how the military is likely to respond?
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't know if you can hear the noise of loudspeakers. About 20 feet from where I am, a U.S. Humvee has a bank of loudspeakers on it, broadcasting in Arabic, pleading for help from anyone who may have seen who planted the bomb that went off here this morning.
Obviously, the U.S. is trying to track down any information they can get. At this stage, they have very little other than at about 7:00 a.m. local time, this bomb went off. It was not a big bomb, Carol, but it did a fair amount of damage.
According to an Iraqi police spokesman, it was a reasonably sophisticated device -- excuse me. And it went off just behind that white generator there. It blew out all of the windows on this side of the hotel and killed a Somali man who was the night manager here at the hotel, who was sleeping right where the bomb went off just on the inside of the wall.
Several NBC staffers were hurt in a very minor way by glass, cut mainly. One sound man got a fairly nasty cut on his arm. So, people were very lucky, but they're also very worried, Carol, because this is really a whole new ballgame when the media, if indeed they were the targets of this, are coming under fire in the same way that we have seen clerics, politicians, senior police officers, as well as, of course, U.S. troops coming under fire.
Whether NBC was the target, it's impossible to say at this stage. But I have to tell you that they are the only residents of this hotel. They leased the whole place some time ago, and they've now moved out, of course. But they were the only residents, and they have a live shot location on the roof, which clearly identifies that a media outfit is broadcasting from here -- Carol.
LIN: Right, just the sheer amount of equipment that we've got to use on location. All right, thank you very much, Michael Holmes, reporting live from Baghdad.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired September 25, 2003 - 06:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: A hotel where the NBC News bureau is based in Baghdad is hit by a bomb. One person is dead. An NBC sound man is slightly injured.
Let's get more details now from our Michael Holmes, who is in Baghdad.
Michael -- we heard from the commander of the ground troops in Baghdad. Is there any more information in terms of who might be responsible or how the military is likely to respond?
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't know if you can hear the noise of loudspeakers. About 20 feet from where I am, a U.S. Humvee has a bank of loudspeakers on it, broadcasting in Arabic, pleading for help from anyone who may have seen who planted the bomb that went off here this morning.
Obviously, the U.S. is trying to track down any information they can get. At this stage, they have very little other than at about 7:00 a.m. local time, this bomb went off. It was not a big bomb, Carol, but it did a fair amount of damage.
According to an Iraqi police spokesman, it was a reasonably sophisticated device -- excuse me. And it went off just behind that white generator there. It blew out all of the windows on this side of the hotel and killed a Somali man who was the night manager here at the hotel, who was sleeping right where the bomb went off just on the inside of the wall.
Several NBC staffers were hurt in a very minor way by glass, cut mainly. One sound man got a fairly nasty cut on his arm. So, people were very lucky, but they're also very worried, Carol, because this is really a whole new ballgame when the media, if indeed they were the targets of this, are coming under fire in the same way that we have seen clerics, politicians, senior police officers, as well as, of course, U.S. troops coming under fire.
Whether NBC was the target, it's impossible to say at this stage. But I have to tell you that they are the only residents of this hotel. They leased the whole place some time ago, and they've now moved out, of course. But they were the only residents, and they have a live shot location on the roof, which clearly identifies that a media outfit is broadcasting from here -- Carol.
LIN: Right, just the sheer amount of equipment that we've got to use on location. All right, thank you very much, Michael Holmes, reporting live from Baghdad.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
