American journalist Tucker Carlson has said an Israeli strike targeting RT correspondent Steve Sweeney in Lebanon was an “attempted assassination,” as he spoke with the reporter about the attack and his work in conflict zones.
Sweeney and cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were injured last month when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at their filming position near the Al-Qasmiya Bridge in southern Lebanon, close to a local army base. The crew, who were wearing clearly marked press gear, said the jet “deliberately attacked” them, with Rida’s camera capturing the moment the blast struck less than 10 meters behind Sweeney as he ducked for cover.
In the interview, released by Carlson on Friday, he told viewers that the strike was “an attempted assassination.” Sweeney said they “were incredibly lucky to come out of that situation alive.”
Sweeney said the munition, which he identified as a GBU-38 bomb fired from an F-16 fighter jet, passed through a hole in the bridge which was already destroyed, arguing that there was “no military objective” in striking it again. He described the attack as “an assassination attempt by Israel to silence the voices on the ground, to silence the truth.”
Carlson asked why a British citizen and former reporter for the Morning Star chose to work for RT. Sweeney quipped that MI5 “would never clear” him to work for the BBC, while arguing that the space for challenging official narratives in the Western media, particularly over the Ukraine conflict, has “completely disappeared.”
“I have complete freedom to report exactly what I want, and nobody tells me what to say,” Sweeney said regarding his work at RT. He noted that RT is banned in the US and EU, while Western broadcasters are still allowed to operate and question officials inside Russia.
UK counterterrorism police detained and interrogated Sweeney at Heathrow Airport last July over his work for RT and his reporting from Donbass and Lebanon, and he told Carlson that he is currently being investigated for potential terrorist activity “based on my journalism” alone.
Sweeney told Carlson that despite the near-fatal strike in Lebanon, he has “no intention of leaving” the country or stopping his work.