GOOD MORNING AMERICA - NEAR-MISS FOR US NEWS ANCHOR IN IRAQ BOMB ATTACK

US ABC news anchor CHRIS CUOMO escaped injury yesterday (23JAN07) when a military police detail he was riding with in Iraq was hit by a roadside bomb. The convoy of four heavily armoured Humvees was on a mission to investigate a report of a burning vehicle in northwest Baghdad when booby-trapped bodies, left by the side of the road, exploded. Some of the soldiers in the convoy suffered minor injuries in the attack. The vehicles returned to safety following a small arms battle and Cuomo reported the attack on TV show GOOD MORNING AMERICA, where he is the news anchor. He said, "If these vehicles did not have the armour that they did, this situation could have turned out very differently." Cuomo, who is the son of former New York Governor MARIO CUOMO, said a hubcap-sized piece of shrapnel shattered glass, but was stopped by the armour in the vehicle in front of him. Fellow ABC News anchor BOB WOODRUFF was seriously injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq on 29 January 2006.