Two Japanese freelance journalists died after their vehicle was attacked by unidentified assailants in the city of Mahmudiyah, about 30 km south of Baghdad, a Foreign Ministry official in Tokyo quoted Iraqi hospital officials as saying Friday.

Freelance journalists Shinsuke Hashida, 61, and his nephew Kotaro Ogawa, 33, were heading to Baghdad by car when another vehicle approached from behind and they were fired upon, the official said.

Hashida was a resident of Bangkok, while Ogawa lived in Tottori Prefecture. Both were natives of Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Two Iraqis -- an interpreter and a driver -- who were in the car at the time of the attack escaped before the car burst into flames, he said.

The driver, who was injured in the shooting, was taken to another hospital while the interpreter, suffering only minor injuries, went home with his family members, the Foreign Ministry said, quoting the hospital officials.

AFP-Jiji reported, however, that the Iraqi translator was also killed in the attack, quoting the man's brother as saying he identified the body at the morgue at a hospital in Mahmudiyah.

The Foreign Ministry said embassy officials have not been able to get in touch with the translator.

Officials at the hospital showed two badly burned corpses to security officials from the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad, telling them that they were the two Japanese who were attacked, the ministry said.

The fact that burned fragments of Japanese newspapers and magazines were sent to the hospital with the two corpses led hospital officials to believe that they were the Japanese journalists, the official said.

The government might send medical experts from Tokyo to confirm the identities of the deceased.

Embassy officials who visited the site said the vehicle was so badly burned that only the frame of the car remained, the official said.

The government has yet to receive any information on the attackers, according to officials in Tokyo.

If their deaths are confirmed, the pair will be the third and fourth Japanese to be killed in Iraq amid the turmoil that continues to engulf the country following the U.S.-led war. In November, two Japanese diplomats were killed near the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit.

The incident was first reported by the injured driver, who made a telephone call to his uncle after being taken to a hospital on the outskirts of Baghdad.

The uncle visited the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad on Thursday evening, carrying pictures of the two Japanese, who were identified as Hashida and Ogawa. Embassy officials later went to the hospital and confirmed the information with the driver.

The Foreign Ministry said it could not confirm some media reports that the vehicle was attacked by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Kyodo News meanwhile quoted an Iraqi police official as saying that the assailants were traveling in a German-made Opel.

The pair had left Baghdad on Thursday morning, arrived in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah around 10:40 a.m. local time, and had started making their way back to Baghdad around 12:30 p.m., the Defense Agency said.

The two, who were reporting on the activities of Self-Defense Forces troops deployed in Samawah on a humanitarian aid mission, came to the SDF camp Thursday morning to get permission to enter restricted areas, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima told a news conference.

The area around Mahmudiyah is said to be one of the most dangerous spots in Iraq, featuring repeated attacks by insurgents on U.S. military convoys, foreign contractors and journalists in recent months.

Three weeks ago, a Polish national and an Algerian journalist were killed in a drive-by shooting on the same road. A CNN crew was attacked in the same area earlier this year -- an attack that left two dead.

The Foreign Ministry and the Cabinet secretariat separately set up emergency headquarters to deal with the incident. The government notified the United States-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and local police and asked for cooperation.

The incident represents another reminder of the unstable security situation in Iraq.

In November, two Japanese diplomats -- Katsuhiko Oku and Masamori Inoue -- and their Iraqi driver were assassinated on a road in northern Iraq.

In April, three Japanese civilians -- an aid worker, a freelance photographer and a recent high school graduate -- were held captive by a militant group that threatened to kill the hostages unless Japan withdrew SDF troops from Iraq.

Japan rejected the demand, and the three were released after spending more than a week in captivity.

Two other Japanese -- a freelance journalist and a peace activist -- were separately kidnapped near Baghdad, but were also released unharmed.

The latest incident took place after most reporters for major Japanese media organizations had left Samawah. But some freelance journalists have stayed on to report on the SDF's activities.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said the incident will not seriously affect the operations of SDF troops in Samawah.

"The area (of the attack) is far from (Samawah) . . . and the security situations are different," Hosoda told a news conference, trying to play down the impact of the incident.

But Japan should monitor developments in the security situation in Iraq, he said.

Hashida had been covering conflicts in areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq since retiring from Nihon Denpa News Co. in 1989, for which he had worked as a correspondent in Hanoi and Bangkok.

Ogawa is a former director at Japan Broadcasting Corp., better known as NHK.

They both entered Iraq earlier this year. While Hashida temporarily returned to Japan in April, Ogawa continued to cover the local situation.

TV Asahi has said that the two have provided it with images from Iraq.

(Information from Kyodo News added)