Quoted:
French Journalist Aids Terrorists In Attempted US Plane Attack


PARIS (AFP) - French weekly magazine, Paris Match, is to publish exclusive pictures of what it says are Iraqi rebels launching a missile attack on a German DHL cargo plane over Baghdad that led to a shutdown of commercial air traffic to the Iraqi capital.


Photo: French journalist documents terrorists attacking US plane. He does nothing to prevent the deaths of Americans.



The images were taken by one of the magazine’s photographers, Jerome Sessini, who was with the attackers – described in the accompanying article as “Iraqi guerrillas” – at the time of Saturday’s missile strike, editor-in-chief Alain Genestar told AFP on Wednesday.


He said Sessini and a special correspondent sent to Iraq , Claudine Verniez-Palliez, had been with the group for several days beforehand and were unaware they were about to witness the attack.


“They had been asked to come see caches of arms very close to Baghdad and didn’t discover the real reason for the operation until the last minute,” Genestar said.


The missile launcher is an SA-14 Gremlin, not an SA-7 Grail as initially reported by the US military.

The SA-14 has a range of 2,000m when used against an approaching jet, although this is extended to 4,500m when used against a helicopter or propellor-driven aircraft.


In the article, Verniez-Palliez writes the rebels thought they had spotted a US military plane and the leader gave the order to fire.


But Genestar rejected accusations that his magazine could be seen to be sympathising with the Iraqi rebels.


“We don’t make the perpetrators of this act to be heroes,” he said, adding the correspondent and photographer had been brought back to France “for safety reasons”.


SA-14 Gremlin Missle Launch at DHL Cargo Plane



Three pictures show a plane trailing smoke with a second smoke trail – said to be a second missile that missed the aircraft – behind it. There is also a close-up of a plane with DHL clearly marked on its side with smoke coming from its left wing, and a wider shot of a plane trailing thick white smoke from its left wing.


[red]Genestar said there was no picture of the missile actually hitting the aircraft because that was “technically impossible”.[BS] [/red]


The strike on the DHL Airbus A300 came just after it tooke off from Baghdad bound for DHL’s Gulf hub in Bahrain. The plane was forced to quickly turn around and make an emergency landing at Baghdad. No-one was hurt. It was the first successful strike on a civilian aircraft in the seven-month-old Iraq insurgency.


The next day, the US authorities occupying Iraq declared they had suspended all commercial air access to the city, though military flights would continue.


The Paris Match photographs were not the first images said to document the attack.


Another French journalist in Iraq, Sara Daniel, correspondent for the Paris-based weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, showed other journalists a video she said had been left at her Baghdad hotel on Sunday.


The six-minute video, seen by AFP on Monday, shows one of a group of masked militants firing a missile that hits the DHL cargo jet.



PMC OUT

[url="http://www.hunt101.com/?p=80517&c=500&z=1"][url]http://www.hunt101.com/img/080517.jpg[/url][/url]

Damage done to the DHL flight.

/S2

Quoted:
If I can photograph a baseball player making contact with a pitch, mind you with the right lens and a bit of luck with timing, than it is totaly technicly possible to catch a missle hitting a plane, again with the right lens and a tad bit of luck that is.


But more on topic, [red]you were expecting maybe something else from the french?[/red]