Kidnapped reporters: the "curse" of Baghdad's Dulaimi hotel

[Barrett808]

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Two French reporters feared to have been taken hostage two days ago, as well as a US newsman and a British freelance who suffered the same fate last week, all stayed in the same eerie Baghdad hotel.

Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, reporters for Radio France Internationale (RFI) and daily Le Figaro have been not been heard from since Friday.

The two journalists checked into the Al-Dulaimi hotel in central Baghdad on August 9. For the two seasoned Iraq specialists, who co-wrote a book on the country under Saddam Hussein, it was their habitual Baghdad quarters.

The owner of the hotel said Sunday he last saw them on Friday morning.

"They wanted to go to Najaf and we told them to stay in Baghdad because it was too dangerous with the Mehdi Army," said the 42-year-old Hamza al-Dulaimi, who comes from a prominent Sunni tribe in the restive western Al-Anbar province.

Although no group has yet claimed responsibility for their capture, it is feared they were taken hostage on the road heading south to the holy Shiite city of Najaf, where a stand-off between radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's militia and Iraqi forces backed by US troops is continuing.

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