Iraq Launches Hunt for Kidnapped CBS Journalists

Security forces have launched a search for a British journalist and his Iraqi translator working for US television network CBS who were kidnapped in the port city of Basra, an official said on Tuesday.

"There is an intensive operation underway to find the journalists," interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf told AFP.

"These are journalists doing their job and those common criminals must be brought to justice."

Witnesses said the two journalists were led away from the Palace Sultan Hotel in the southern city of Basra at gunpoint by a gang of about 10 gunmen on Sunday.

The witnesses identified one as a British photo-journalist who had previously worked in Basra, and the other as his Iraqi interpreter. Both men had flown to Basra from Baghdad and checked into the hotel on Saturday.

Dozens of Iraqi and foreign journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

Underscoring the perils, the Young Journalists League said the body of an Iraqi journalist was found in Baghdad on Tuesday, two days after he disappeared after heading out shopping.