A cameraman working for ABC News was hit in the forehead with a bullet when the Marines open fired in the direction of journalists after coming under attack in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, doctors and witnesses told AFP.

"ABC News cameraman Burhan Mohammed al-Luhaybi who received a bullet to the forehead, just passed away," said Muhannad al-Samarrai, a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital.

"The bullet is the same that we have seen in previous casualties fired by US troops," said another doctor, Mohammed al-Kabissi.

There was no immediate comment from the US military on the incident, which occurred after masked insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, assault rifles and mortars confronted the Marines.

According to the US military and Iraqi medical sources, a US Marine and four other Iraqis, including a two-year-old child, were also killed and several other Marines and Iraqis wounded.

ABC News confirmed on its website that Luhaybi was "killed today while covering a firefight between US Marines and Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah."

It said Luhaybi was "an Iraqi citizen born in 1969, (and who) had been working for ABC News as a freelance cameraman for almost two months."

"The US military had no comment on the fighting and it was unknown who killed the cameraman. ABC News has asked the US military to investigate the incident," it said.

"We will miss Burhan's dedication and professionalism. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family," ABC News president David Westin said in a statement.

An AFP correspondent and other reporters in Fallujah said Luhaybi was standing among a group of journalists covering the clashes when the US soldiers fired in their direction.

"We told him to stay back, but he insisted on moving forward to take more shots. This is when the US forces fired and he was wounded," an AFP correspondent said.

Doctors at the hospital in Fallujah fought to save his life but failed. The city, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the Iraqi capital, is in the so-called Sunni Triangle where US forces regularly come under fire.

In New York, Time magazine said one of its translators had succumbed to his wounds after apparently being targetted by rebels in the capital.

"Today, we mourn the passing of Omar Hashim Kamal, a translator who worked with Time's Baghdad operation," managing editor Jim Kelly said in a statement.

Kamal, 48, was shot by unidentified assailants in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday morning while driving to an assignment. A Time spokesman said he had been targetted by gunmen in the past.

He was hospitalised in critical condition and died on Friday morning in hospital.

"Ever since we opened our Baghdad office last year, Omar has proven invaluable in helping Time tell the story of Iraq to readers worldwide. We are forever in his debt," Kelly said.

An Iraqi cameraman was killed Friday by a bullet to the forehead when US troops fired in the direction of journalists during clashes in the flashpoint town of Fallujah.

Luhaybi and Kamal are the third and forth media employees to die in Iraq in the last 10 days.

Two journalists with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television network were shot dead in Baghdad last week. Al-Arabiya said US soldiers were responsible and the US military is investigating the charge.

A total of 23 media workers have now died since the start of the US-led war in Iraq a year ago.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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