The Wire

The website Wikileaks has released footage of a US helicopter killing 12 people in Baghdad in 2007, including two Reuters reporters. Two children were also killed inside a van which stopped to aid survivors. Disturbingly, the helicopter pilots can be heard joking as they obliterate the street with heavy weapons. The slain journalists were Iraqis, and had been reporting on weight lifting before fighting between insurgents and Coalition forces attracted them to the area. The pilots mistook the journalists’ cameras for guns. A whistleblower from the US military leaked the footage after Reuters unsuccessfully campaigned for its release.