IRAQ: One of America's best-known broadcasters and his cameraman were seriously injured yesterday in a roadside bomb attack on an Iraqi army unit they were travelling with north of Baghdad. Bob Woodruff, one of two main presenters of ABC television's World News Tonight, and Doug Vogt, the cameraman, were being treated in a US military hospital last night.
They were filming a report when the bomb exploded in the town of Taji, 20 miles from Baghdad.
Yesterday car bombs exploded outside the Vatican mission and at least four churches in Baghdad and Kirkuk within 20 minutes, killing at least three Iraqis and wounding nine, police said.
On Saturday, a bomb killed 10 people in a shop in Iskandariya, 50 miles south of Baghdad.
A Baghdad University professor, Razaq al-Naas, who appeared on television as a political analyst, was assassinated by gunmen who blocked his car and opened fire. A group of kidnappers calling themselves the "Swords of Truth Brigades" renewed their threat to kill four western peace activists.
The attack on Mr Woodruff forced Iraq back to the top of the American news bulletins two days before President Bush is due to make his state of the Union speech. He is expected to dwell mainly on domestic policy issues, but it will be difficult for the president not to address the casualty toll from an increasingly unpopular war.