The Committee for the Protection of Journalists reports there are now six international journalists missing in Iraq. They are Matthew McAllester and Moises Saman of Newsday in New York. Johan Rydeng Spanner, a free-lance photographer with a Danish daily paper. U.S. Free lance photographer Molly Bingham. And a pair of journalists from the British ITV News, cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Othman.

The Committee reports that three journalists have died so far.

On March 22, Terry Lloyd, a reporter for Britain’s ITN, was killed, perhaps by “friendly fire” from U.S. or British troops, near the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

The same day, Paul Moran, a free-lance cameraman on assignment for the Australian Broadcasting Corp., was killed in an apparent suicide attack when a man detonated a car bomb at a checkpoint in northeastern Iraq.

Another ITN reporter, Gaby Rado was found dead Sunday in a parking lot of the Abu Sanaa hotel in Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq, where he and other reporters were staying.

The families of the two Newsday journalists missing in Baghdad asked the Rev. Jesse Jackson yesterday to help locate their loved ones and secure their release.

In related news, the U.S. military has expelled at least five journalists over the past week.

Two Israeli and two Portuguese journalists are charging that U.S. forces detained them for 72 hours, denying them food and water and making them stand overnight in the cold.

One of the Israeli reporters said, “They made us lie on the ground with our face in the sand for hours before we were given a thorough body search.”

One of the Portuguese journalists was reportedly beaten by five U.S. soldiers.

And Christian Science Monitor stringer Philip Smucker was also removed by the military from Iraq. He is now reporting from Kuwait. Last week the U.S. military expelled him from Iraq for disclosing what the Pentagon claimed to be sensitive information.

Well today we are joined by Pacifica’s own unembedded reporter, Jerry Quickley who left Baghdad last week after being expelled by Iraqi officials.

• Les Payne, deputy managing editor of Newsday.
• Jerry Quickley, reporter with Pacifica Radio who was recently expelled from Baghdad by Iraqi officials