PARIS, March 5: An international journalists' rights panel called on the United Nations on Saturday to conduct an urgent probe into how it came about that US soldiers opened fire in Baghdad on the car carrying the Italian correspondent.

A statement by Paris-based Reporters sans frontieres urged an investigation to shed light on the circumstances in which the military fired on the vehicle.

"A thorough investigation must be quickly carried out by the United Nations into this blunder with tragic consequences," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Menard.

"It is clear that his enquiry cannot be conducted just by the US army which in the past, especially in the case of the Palestine Hotel shooting that killed two journalists, produced reports aimed solely at exonerating the military," Mr Menard said, adding: "We demand to know the full truth about this distressing affair."-AFP