"My son is a martyr who was killed as a result of America's so-called civilisation in an attack on press freedom," said Naeem Ayub, whose son Tareq was killed Tuesday when a US missile struck the offices of Al-Jazeera TV in Baghdad.

"They are attacking journalists to hide the truth," Naeem Ayub said, as he held up his son's one-year-old daughter Fatima, with tears running down his face.

Around 300 people, most of them journalists, took part in the solidarity march from Jordan's Al Dustour newspaper down Press Road to the English-language Jordan Times where Ayub also worked.

The marchers carried portraits of the 34-year-old journalists and placards condemning the deaths of Ayub and two television cameramen in US fire on Baghdad the previous day.

"We call on the international community to intervene immediately to stop the aggression (on Iraq) and to protect journalists because what happened is a war crime," press union president Tareq Momani said in a statement.

"This is a war crime and we demand that those responsible be tried for it," Momani said.

The crowd called for the expulsion from Jordan of the "criminal" US ambassador, lambasted the United States as "the head of the serpent" and urged the government to evict US troops from the country.

"Abu Ragheb listen to the people. No US bases on Jordanian soil. No US embassy on Jordanian soil," the protesters chanted in a message addressed to Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb.

On Tuesday US ambassador Edward Gnehm said he was "deeply saddened" at the death of Ayub.

"He was a professional and a colleague whom we will miss dearly. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family and to his colleagues and friends in the Jordanian media," Gnehm said in a statement.

Meanwhile the city of Irbid, Jordan's northern capital, decided during a council meeting Wednesday to name a street after Ayub "who was martyred while reporting the truth about the (US) invasion against the Iraqi people".

In a separate incident Tuesday two cameramen were killed and three other media personnel wounded when a US tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, home to most of the journalists covering the war US-led war on Iraq from Baghdad.

SPACE.WIRE