30 Western Journalists Missing in Troubled Iraq Area : Media: Fear grows that they may have been taken captive by elements of the Republican Guard.

About 30 Western journalists have not been heard from, and concern rose Tuesday that they have been taken captive in troubled southeastern Iraq by members of the defeated Republican Guard, U.S. officials and news organizations said.

Most of the reporters, including about 11 Americans, left Kuwait Sunday and Monday in a caravan in hopes of reaching some of the dozen-or-so towns in southern Iraq where anti-Saddam Hussein demonstrations are said to be growing.

The journalists may be in serious danger because of fierce fighting reported in and around Basra between the Republican Guard and units of the regular army, now believed to be siding with civilians clamoring for Hussein’s ouster.

Air Force Maj. Robert Magnuson, a Pentagon spokesman in Washington, said the caravan of journalists was last seen about 25 miles south of Basra.

“We are not panicked, but we are certainly very worried and concerned,” said Mary Morgan, a spokeswoman for National Public Radio in Washington, which has reported one journalist missing.

“We are trying every conceivable way to send out the message that these are legitimate journalists,” said Bernard Gwertzman, foreign editor of the New York Times, which also counts a reporter among the missing.

Most of the journalists had headed north from Kuwait city when reports grew of civil strife in southern Iraq.

According to wire service reports, among the missing journalists are CNN reporter Greg Lamotte and cameraman Tyrone Edwards; New York Times reporter Chris Hedges; Neal Conan of National Public Radio, and Philippe Wojazer and Santiago Lyon, photographers with Reuters.

The French journalists are correspondents and crew from the French television networks TF1, Antenne 2 and La Cinq, as well as correspondents for Radio Monte Carlo and reporters for the newspapers Le Monde and Liberation and the magazine L’Evenement de Jeudi, including a Reuters photographer listed by the U.S. officials. They were identified as Patrick Bourrat, Bruce Frankel, Francois Dore and Patrick Michel of TF1; Herve Brusini, Gilles Trinel, Franck Brisset and Joel Gaultier of Antenne 2, Pascal Richard and Loic Madeleine of La Cinq; Francoise Chipaux of Le Monde; Pierre Thebaut of Radio Monte Carlo; Francois Came of Liberation, and Francois Landon of L’Evenement de Jeudi.

Five Italian journalists also were said to be missing. But their identities were not known.

Le Monde said a convoy of 12 cars left Kuwait city early Sunday but only four drove through the checkpoint at about 11 a.m. local time. The other vehicles turned back.

A TV journalist who was in the French convoy reported from Safwan, Iraq, in U.S.-held Iraqi territory later Tuesday that four or five cars were stopped.

“We were in a convoy of about 15 cars. The first four or five were stopped by the Republican Guard and were unable to turn back as we did as soon as we saw the threat posed by Iraqi army soldiers,” Etienne Leinhart said on La Cinq network.

At least three carloads of Western photographers skirted Iraqi roadblocks Sunday and traveled toward Basra. A photographer who tried to drive to Basra told the Washington Post that as he approached a roadblock, he saw two Western journalists sitting in a car with Iraqi license plates.

Steve Hayworth, a spokesman for CNN in Atlanta, said reporter Lamotte and cameraman Edwards were traveling alone to Basra and have not been heard from since they checked in early Monday morning at a U.S. military checkpoint about 15 miles north of the Kuwait-Iraq border.

R. W. Apple Jr., the New York Times Dhahran bureau chief, said he last talked at 2 a.m. Monday with Hedges, who for weeks has roamed the allied battle staging areas outside the military pool system--and without escort.

Times staff writer Dean Murphy contributed to this report.