Portuguese Iraq reporter abducted

Carlos Raleiras managed to get a message back

A Portuguese journalist has been kidnapped and another reporter injured in an attack in southern Iraq.

Carlos Raleiras was seized after the assailants opened fire on a three-jeep convoy of Portuguese journalists which had just crossed into Iraq from Kuwait.

They were heading for the southern city of Basra to cover the arrival of a Portuguese military police contingent.

A reporter for a Portuguese TV channel, Maria Joao Ruela, injured her leg and was taken to a British-run hospital.

Mr Raleiras contacted Portuguese news agency Lusa, telling them the situation was very delicate.

Second attack

Speaking by satellite phone, he said: "Would anyone who speaks Arabic please contact me. I have to stop talking now, OK?

Lusa correspondent Luis Castro told Portuguese state television that the ambush started with gunmen shooting at the convoy from two vehicles.

Perhaps we were unwise to go into the country without any security Armando Seixas Ferreira Journalist

Two of the Portuguese jeeps accelerated and managed to escape, while the third one turned back towards Kuwait and was caught in the ambush.

"The situation in Iraq is explosive... perhaps we were unwise to go into the country without any security," journalist Armando Seixas Ferreira, of state television RTP, told the Portuguese media.

Lusa news agency says the Portuguese Union of Journalists is trying to contact international organisations in Iraq to find an interpreter for Mr Raleiras.

This was the second attack on Portuguese reporters this week.

On Thursday, armed men briefly detained three Portuguese journalists on a road near Basra and robbed one of them before US troops arrived.

The contingent of Portugal's military police, whose arrival the reporters wanted to document, left Portugal on Wednesday and was initially due to be stationed in Nasiriyah.

But after the suicide bombing which killed 18 Italians on the same day, they were sent to Basra instead.