"The press is paying a very high price," the organization said, with 11 journalists and one BBC translator killed since the start of the war on March 20, according to an AFP toll.

"We are appalled by these figures and infuriated by the attitude of the American army, whose behavior has continued to deteriorate with respect to journalists, especially those not embedded since the start of this war," the group told AFP.

Two cameramen, one from the Reuters press agency and one working for the Telecinco station, were killed Tuesday after a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, where most foreign journalists in the city are based.

Earlier in the day, a correspondent for the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera was killed when a US missile crashed into the station's offices in downtown Baghdad.

The Paris-based group said it would send a letter later in the day to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "in protest over what appears to be a deliberate act by the American army" and demanding explanations.

In Washington, the Pentagon blamed the deaths of the journalists in Baghdad on the Iraqi government, saying it kept putting civilians at risk.

"We don't target journalists. But as we have seen repeatedly the Iraqi regime has put civilians at risk. Baghdad remains a dangerous place," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Reporters without Borders also lamented the "total silence" from US forces about an incident in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on March 22, in which ITN correspondent Terry Lloyd was killed, apparently by US-British fire.

Two other members of his crew are still missing following that incident.

SPACE.WIRE