The BBC's world affairs editor, John Simpson, who was with a Kurdish convoy near Arbil in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, said a bomb was dropped from a United States plane, 10 to 12 feet (about four meters) from where he was standing.

The US military later acknowledged that one of its warplanes might have attacked the convoy.

Simpson, 58, suffered minor injuries. His 25-year-old Kurdish translator, Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, was seriously wounded and later died, a spokeswoman for the BBC in London said.

"A Kurdish translator working with the BBC team was badly injured in the attack and died shortly afterwards," she said. He had been with the BBC since mid-March.

"He was 25 years old and unmarried. His relatives have been informed. Our sympathies and thoughts are with Kamaran's family. We are in contact with them and offering them all the support we can," she said.

The BBC said that Simpson and his five-man crew -- excluding the translator -- had been taken to the US field hospital in Arbil, where they were receiving treatment for minor shrapnel injuries. Simpson and another member of the team also suffered perforated ear drums.

Simpson described on air the attack on the convoy of eight or 10 cars, which was being escorted by US special forces travelling in two trucks.

He said if he had not been wearing his flak jacket, which was riddled with shrapnel, he would also have been killed.

"The Americans saw this convoy and they bombed it and they hit their own people. They've killed a lot of ordinary characters. I've counted 10 or 12 bodies around us, so there are Americans dead," he said.

"This was a really bad own goal by the Americans. We don't know how many Americans are dead," Simpson said.

"This is just a scene from hell here, all the vehicles on fire. There's bodies burning around me, there's bodies lying around, there's bits of bodies on the ground," he said.

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