BAGHDAD, Sept 15: The US military apologized on Wednesday for the death of a journalist following a Baghdad helicopter strike and warned civilians to keep out of combat zones.

"I am sorry he lost his life," Major General Peter Chiarelli, commander of US troops in Baghdad, told angry colleagues from Al Arabiya, whose fixer Mazen al Tomaisi was killed on Sunday.

"We regret the loss of any innocent civilians and we do everything in our power to limit these losses in combat operations," Colonel Jim McConville, aviation commander in the 1st Cavalry Division, told a news conference.

The 28-year-old Palestinian journalist had been working for the pan-Arab satellite station as a fixer for over a year as well as as a reporter for Saudi television, covering the Iraq conflict.

Tomaisi was killed after rushing down from his apartment in Haifa Street to give a report to a Reuters camera on clashes between US troops and guerillas because Al-Arabiya's own crew were blocked from entering, a colleague said.

Two helicopters, laden with rockets, were dispatched to Haifa Street after a suicide bomber drove a car into a Bradley tank and six soldiers were wounded in clashes with guerillas on Sunday.

Chiarelli and McConville both insisted that the pilots had done all they could to minimise collateral damage. Told to destroy the Bradley to prevent looting, they had attack at close range for greater accuracy, despite the greater risk to themselves, the US officers said.

Minutes before the air strike, a crowd of people, including a man waving the black flag of suspected Al Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, climbed on the Bradley and danced around the flaming vehicle.

Well-aimed ground fire was aimed at the helicopters, said McConville. One out of 14 rockets was dropped before the aircraft made another sweep and fired six additional rockets. On a third attack, they fired machine-gun fire. -AFP