Journalist 'missing' in Gulf

Journalist 'missing' in Gulf

Matthew McAllester last contacted his US office on Monday

Concern is growing for a British journalist who has disappeared from a hotel in Baghdad.

Matthew McAllester, 33, and a photographer have not been in contact with their US newspaper Newsday office in New York since Monday evening.

The reporter, who was born in London but brought up in Edinburgh, told colleagues he was preparing to file copy, but did not get back in touch.

Newsday editor Anthony Marro said that was the last contact he had with the journalist, who was travelling with the newspaper's 29-year-old photographer Moises Saman.

We don't know where they are, we don't know who they are with and we don't know if, in fact, they've left Baghdad

Newsday editor Anthony Marro

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that a search for the journalist was under way.

He said: "We are aware and concerned that a British journalist's whereabouts in Baghdad are unknown.

"We are trying to find out if he has left Iraq and crossed the border into Jordan, Syria or Kuwait."

The Foreign Office would continue to liaise with US Government officials over Mr McAllester's disappearance, he added.

Moises Saman is with the journalist

Mr Marro said: "A lot of time has gone by now and we have not heard from them.

"We don't know where they are, we don't know who they are with and we don't know if, in fact, they've left Baghdad, or where they're headed for."

He said his two members of staff - who entered Iraq with what he described as "limited visas" - had been staying in Baghdad's Palestine Hotel.

Mr Marro said Iraqi officials had visited the hotel to check visitors' visas.

Conflict coverage

Mr McAllester has worked for Newsday for nine years.

According to the Newsday website he is the newspaper's United Nations Bureau Chief and foreign correspondent who has covered conflicts in Kosovo and the Middle East.

Mr Saman joined the Newsday photo staff in February 2000. Previously, he was a Newsday photo intern, beginning in 1998.

A native of Barcelona, Spain, he is a graduate of California State University at Fullerton and Cerrito College in Norwalk, California.

Two ITN journalists, who were in the same convoy as Terry Lloyd in southern Iraq, are still missing.

Mr Lloyd was killed when the car he was travelling in came under fire.