"We narrowly ecaped being lynched," Carlos Fino of the Portuguese channel RTP said. "We were beaten with rifle butts and fists."

He said that the group of one Bulgarian and six Portuguese journalists were attacked while travelling by car some three kilometres (two miles) from the Palestine hotel where most foreign journalists are staying.

They were forced to stop by armed Iraqi militiamen who robbed them of much of their equipment and money, Fino said, adding that only the intervention of a Baath party member prevented the journalists being lynched.

The journalists fled under fire, according to another reporter, Pedro Sousa Pereira.

SPACE.WIRE