The X-ray, optical and infrared counterpart to GRB 980703

We report on X-ray, optical and infrared followup observations of GRB 98070 3. We detect a previously unknown X-ray source in the GRB error box assumin g a power law decline we find for its decay index alpha < -0.91(3 sigma). W e invoke host galaxy extinction to match the observed spectral slope with t he slope expected from "fire-ball" models. We find no evidence for a spectr al break in the infrared to X-ray spectral range on 1998 July 4.4, and dete rmine a lower limit of the cooling break frequency: nu(c) > 1.3 10(17) Hz. For this epoch we obtain an extinction of A(v) = 1.50 +/- 0.11. From the X- ray data ave estimate the optical extinction to be Av = 20.2(-7.3)(+12.3), inconsistent with the former value. Following Wijers & Galama (1998), we de termine intrinsic fireball properties for this burst.