Three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq

BUCHAREST - Three Romanian journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq, Romania's President Traian Basescu said.

"We have alerted all the secret services and the foreign intelligence services of our allies to solve the case," Basescu told Romanian TVR1 television.

Two of the kidnapped journalists work for Romania's Prima TV, where an editor had received a phone call from them saying they had been abducted, TVR1 said.

It named the two Prima reporters as Marijan Ion and Sorin Miscoci. Also kidnapped was Ovidiu Ohannesian of Romania Libera newspaper, it said. The three had been making a short reporting trip to Baghdad from Romania.

President Basescu was speaking after a whistlestop visit to Afghanistan and Iraq, where Romania has some 800 troops in the US-led military coalition occupying the country.

More than 150 foreigners have been seized in Iraq over the past year. Most have been freed after negotiations or payment of ransom, but about a third have been killed. Many more Iraqis have been abducted, often for ransom.

- REUTERS