Sanjay Gupta, CNN's medical correspondent and a neurosurgeon, stepped back from his journalistic duties to perform brain surgery on a two-year-old Iraqi boy.

The surgery was successful, but the boy died of other injuries sustained when United States marines fired at a taxi that had crossed a checkpoint south of Baghdad without stopping, on Thursday.

The boy's mother, who was at the back, is in a critical condition, reports said.

The surgery was performed to relieve pressure on his brain.

Gupta was assigned to a team of naval doctors known as the 'Devil Docs', but the unit did not have any neurosurgeon.

"Sanjay was sent to that particular unit as a medical correspondent, but we clearly support his effort under these extraordinary circumstances to save the life of a dying boy," CNN, which was 'extremely proud' of him, said.

"Medically and morally, I thought it was absolutely right thing to do, to give the kid a fighting chance to live. We came very close to that," Gupta said, adding that he did not hesitate to agree to operate the child.

The unit's commander Rob Hinks praised Gupta's role as a 'humanitarian gesture'.