Pentagon asks networks not to air Yemen footage

NEW YORK - American television networks were forced to make delicate decisions about the use of video footage from two scenes of Middle East violence on Thursday.

CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel repeatedly aired footage of a Palestinian mob that attacked and killed three Israeli soldiers. While the scenes depicted a violent attack, what they were attacking was never actually made clear.

Meanwhile, all three cable news networks promised to comply with a Pentagon request not to air footage of sailors injured in the attack on a U.S. warship in Yemen. Yet two later aired it anyway, they say by mistake.

Italy's Mediaset TV aired striking pictures that showed the body of one of the Israeli soldiers dangling upside down, apparently attached to a rope. The body was dropped from a window, where the mob stomped on it and beat the corpse.

A body was not visible in video clips aired by several American networks. The crowd can be seen beating on something, but the victim is unclear. CNN aired footage that focuses in on blood stains under the window of the building where the attack occurred.

''The footage, while difficult, tells an important story,'' said ABC spokesman Jeff Schneider.

John Moody, Fox News Channel's vice president of news and editorial quality, said that while the footage was ''very disturbing, it was not offensively disturbing.''

Pictures relating to the apparent terrorist attack on the USS Cole were slow in coming. But Yemeni television began making available footage that showed a handful of Americans in hospital beds.

CNN and MSNBC both aired the video before Defense Secretary William Cohen pleaded with networks not to show injured sailors before their families could be notified. Both said they would comply.

Fox News Channel, which also agreed to the Pentagon's request, said the faces of American soldiers were visible in the footage.

''I think I can understand if I was a relative of a sailor I would have liked to have been called first before I saw my loved one's face from a hospital on television,'' Moody said.

Not an hour after Moody talked, Fox aired seven seconds of the footage. It was done inadvertently by a producer who wasn't aware of the ban, a spokesman said.

CNN mistakenly ran the tape around 5 p.m. EDT. A spokeswoman explained it was because the network was running a simulcast of CNN International, the overseas network that was not abiding by Cohen's request because - presumably - the sailors' relatives were not where the network is usually seen.

CBS aired the video with faces obscured. ABC and NBC showed some footage, but no faces.

The Middle East unrest sent Dan Rather packing on Thursday. He flew to Tel Aviv, and planned to anchor the ''CBS Evening News'' from Jerusalem on Friday and Monday. ABC's Peter Jennings and NBC's Tom Brokaw were staying in America.