PARIS - Three Western reporters were killed in northeast Afghanistan on Sunday when Taliban forces ambushed fighters of the opposition Northern Alliance, their employers said on Monday.

They were the first journalists to be killed in the conflict in Afghanistan since the start of US-led military action against the ruling Taliban on October 7.

French radio reporters Johanne Sutton (34) and Pierre Billaud (31) and German journalist Volker Handloik (40), a freelance working for Stern magazine, had been riding on the roof of an armoured personnel carrier when it came under fire.

Sutton worked for Radio France International (RFI) and Billaud reported for Luxembourg-based RTL radio.

Colleagues said the journalists were among six reporters who had set out with Northern Alliance forces to try to verify opposition claims to have captured the town of Taloqan.

"All three of us were on the back of the APC and we were joking about dragging along our interpreter, who was a bit reluctant about it," said French radio reporter Veronique Rebeyrotte, who was with Sutton and Billaud.

"We never thought we would be taking a risk," she said.

Rebeyrotte and another journalist who was present, Paul McGeough of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, said Taliban forces waiting in ambush opened fire on the vehicle at close range with semi-automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

Sutton, Billaud and Handloik tumbled off the roof of the APC when it braked suddenly and turned back.

"Three of us clung on for grim death and we survived," McGeough reported.

Rebeyrotte said the armoured personnel carrier left the three journalists behind and their bodies were later recovered by alliance troops.

Hundreds of foreign reporters are working in areas controlled by the Northern Alliance to cover the US-led campaign against the Taliban.

"We were in a hurry to get into the Taliban zone, to see a bit what was happening on the other side," Rebeyrotte said.

"This is a real nightmare, an absolute nightmare."

RTL said Billaud, who had also reported from Algeria, Bosnia and Kosovo, had been in the country for three weeks. - Nampa-Reuters