Lieutenant Colonel Nadir Khalil Ibrahim Shaban of the Kuwaiti Police said that they were found shot dead in Umm Qasr, victims of Iraqi sniper fire.

However, their employer ITN said in a statement from London that they were missing.

Lieutenant Shaban told Arab News: “These journalists were not on the roster of those permitted into the Northern District of Kuwait leading to the Iraqi border. The Northern District has been closed to all journalists since March 18 for exactly this reason.

“But some journalists were being allowed to enter the Northern District restricted zone prior to March 18.”

It is not clear whether these journalists went in before March 18, or sneaked in afterward.

Early Tuesday morning, this reporter as well as reporters from ITN, LBC, Al-Siyasiyah and Associated Press attempted to cross into the Northern District through the desert but were unsuccessful. It is unclear at this time whether the journalists who were killed were part of that group.

It is easy to mistake some journalists for American troops as some, such as those from The Associated Press, were driving sand colored Hummers and were wearing military fatigues.

ITN said in the statement that three members of a television crew were missing after coming under fire in Iraq on their way to the southern city of Basra.

The three are correspondent Terry Lloyd and colleagues Fred Nerac and Hussein Othman.

“An ITV News crew came under fire at Iman Anas, near Basra, as they drove toward the city in two vehicles,” ITN said. “One of the crew, Daniel Demoustier, was injured but was able to get to safety. He was not able to see what happened to his colleagues... At present, they are still missing.”

Demoustier, who was in the same car as the missing journalists, said they had come under heavy fire after being followed by two Iraqi vehicles.

“I had to duck down straight away, windows were exploding inside the car. I looked to my right side and the right door near my correspondent (Lloyd) was open and he was not there anymore,” Demoustier, who had a black eye and cuts to his face, told the ITV news channel.

He said the car fell into a ditch and then burst into flames. British and Iraqi forces were in the area at the time, the ITN statement said.

“Coalition and Iraqi military sources have been unable to confirm their whereabouts. Every effort is being made to establish what happened.”

Dozens of journalists are accompanying British and American forces across the various war fronts. Others are in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, which the US-led forces have been bombing and hope to capture.

ITV’s award-winning correspondent Lloyd has reported extensively from Iraq, Cambodia, Bosnia and Kosovo.