Baghdad - A Baghdad newspaper on Wednesday retracted claims that US troops in Iraq had gang-raped two teenage girls, saying it had fired the two journalists who penned the report, which sparked a furious reaction from the US military.
"On Saturday we published a report by two of our correspondents Ahmad Abdel Karim and Mohammad Fadel, saying that US soldiers had raped two young girls," As-Saah wrote.
"Considering the sensitive nature of this affair, we sent out chief editor and two other reporters to Suwairra and they found the article was based on local hearsay."
US Central Command said a "thorough investigation" had shown the report to be "absolutely false" and charged that the paper was "purposefully" seeking to "damage the credibility of our forces".
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It accused the paper, whose managing editor Adeeb Shaaban was an aide of Saddam Hussein's elder son Uday and has been in US custody for nearly a fortnight, of supporting the ousted strongman. -
Sapa-AFP
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