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Former Gore photographer missing in Iraq

WASHINGTON: An American journalist who was former Vice President Al Gore's photographer is missing in Iraq along with two other US journalists taken from their Baghdad hotel, the photographer's family said on Monday.

Molly Bingham, who was Gore's photographer during his failed presidential bid against President George W. Bush in 2000, was taken by Iraqi police from her room in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad last Tuesday, said her cousin, Clara Bingham.

"They searched her room, packed up all her belongings and they took her away," said Bingham in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" program.

Bingham said the family feared Molly Bingham, 34, was taken because she had worked as Gore's official photographer and that Iraq believed she was a spy.

"We are really frantic at this stage," said Clara Bingham.

She said her cousin, who was freelancing in Baghdad, had been detained by Iraqi authorities for four hours the previous Saturday and had called her sister after the questioning to say she was safe. She also had e-mailed her parents.

Two other journalists working for New York's Newsday newspaper also disappeared last Tuesday from the Palestine Hotel and are still missing, said Newsday Managing Editor Charlotte Hall on the same show.

Hall said she had last heard from Matthew McAllester, 33, and photographer Moises Saman, 29, a week ago.

She said the paper had been in contact with the Iraqi delegation at the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Papal Nuncio but had not heard anything of the journalists' whereabouts.

Newsday is one of the largest daily newspapers in the United States, serving Long Island and New York.-Reuters