Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 6, 1991                   TAG: 9103060217
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA                                LENGTH: Medium

REPORTERS COVERING REBELLION IN IRAQ MISSING, BELIEVED IN DANGER

The journalists from American, British, French and Italian news organizations drove into Iraq from Kuwait to gather information on a reported rebellion against the government of Saddam Hussein.

The U.S. Central Command in Riyadh reported that 11 of the journalists left Kuwait for the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Sunday without a military escort and were "believed to be in serious danger." It said the 11 included four Americans.

In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry said another 14 French journalists have been missing in southern Iraq since Sunday.

A three-member crew from Britain's Independent Television News has also disappeared in southern Iraq, an ITN correspondent in Dhahran reported. He said the crew was in a convoy that tried to follow senior Iraqi military officers back to Basra after their meeting Sunday with allied commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf near the border with Kuwait.

Southern Iraq has been the site of intense fighting between Saddam's Republican Guard and opposition forces, according to reports from fleeing refugees, opposition leaders and Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency.

In Paris, a French television correspondent reported Tuesday that he was part of a convoy of cars carrying French journalists toward Basra and turned back Sunday.

"The others were stopped by Republican Guards and are in prison," Etienne Leenhardt said on the La Cinq television network. "All are in the same prison . . . and not caught in between . . . any opposing military forces."

Associated Press photographers Don Mell and Scott Applewhite, who traveled about 15 miles into Iraq on Saturday along the road leading from the Kuwaiti border, said they were warned it was dangerous to proceed farther.

"Both the civilians and the soldiers that we came into contact with seemed very concerned for our personal safety," said Mell.

He said at one point the driver of a small truck carrying Iraqi civilians stopped them and told them not to proceed because the Republican Guards and Iraq's secret police were "operating in the area and would shoot us."