TVP television said their cameraman, Jerzy Ernst, told the station from his hospital bed that his colleagues died in a hail of gunfire at Latifiya, south of Baghdad, as they were driving toward the base where Polish troops are stationed. Their Iraqi driver was also wounded.

Poland's prime minister designate, Marek Belka, told a news conference here that "the news of the tragic death of Waldemar Milewicz has been really very shocking to us."

Belka described Milewicz, who was named reporter of the year in 2001, as "a symbol" of journalism.

Milewicz, 48, who had been working for TVP since 1984, was a seasoned war correspondent who won awards for his work in Chechnya and Rwanda. He also covered conflicts in the Balkans, Cambodia and Somalia, and had only recently arrived in Iraq.

His film "Chechnya: Six days of war" won a journalism prize from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1995. The previous year, the German Marshall Fund had awarded him a prize for his coverage of the Rwandan genocide.

Bouamrane, 36, had worked for about 15 years for TVP and had Polish and Algerian citizenship.

He leaves an Algerian wife and 12-year-old daughter from a previous marriage to a Polish woman who died.

Ernst said the team were attacked by gunmen who drove up close behind their vehicle in a black, Japanese-made car.

"There was a long burst of fire at close range," he said. "I turned and saw Waldek, who had gone very pale and I realised that he was dead," he said, choking with emotion.

"The two others got out of the car and I went with them holding my camera, but I could not move quickly and that is when I was shot in the elbow," he said.