March 23, 2003	Sunday	Muharram 19, 1424

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HALABJA, Iraq, March 22: An Australian journalist was killed on Saturday in a car-bomb explosion in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, colleagues and eyewitnesses said.

Three Kurdish fighters were also killed and another journalist was wounded in the blast at a checkpoint outside the village of Khormal, a base of a Muslim group which had earlier been destroyed by US cruise missiles.

Witnesses said the journalists were waiting to enter the village when a taxi drew up beside them and exploded, sending a huge cloud of smoke into the air.

The killed journalist was identified as Paul Moran, 39. He belonged to the Australian Broadcast Corporation.

Khormal is a base of Komala Islami Kurdistan, which was targeted by cruise missiles early Saturday. It was unclear why Komala was targeted.

KUWAIT CITY: Five journalists were injured and three reported missing on Saturday near the Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr, a Kuwaiti armed forces spokesman told the Kuwait News Agency (Kuna).

Col Yousef al-Mullah said the circumstances behind those injured or missing were not clear, but he urged reporters not embedded with US or British troops not to enter the border area until it was militarily secured.

Earlier reports said two cars carrying foreign journalists came under fire on Saturday on the road between Umm Qasr and Basra. Both cars belonged to the British television network ITV, Kuna said. Sources also told Kuna that a French journalist was detained on Saturday by Iraqi soldiers.

LONDON: British television reporter Terry Lloyd and colleagues Fred Nerac and Hussein Othman were missing on Saturday after they came under fire while travelling to Basra, Britain’s main commercial TV news service ITN said.—Agencies