- BAGHDAD (AFP) - Two female
Italian aid workers kidnapped in Baghdad three weeks ago were released
along with two Iraqi colleagues, making at least 10 the number of people
freed in 24 hours, including employees of Egyptian telecoms giant Orascom.
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- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi himself confirmed
in Rome the release of Simona Pari and Simon Torretta, both 29, taken at
gunpoint from the office of their aid organisation "A Bridge to Baghdad"
on September 7.
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- He described it as a "moment of joy," confirming
that two Iraqi aid workers kidnapped at the same time had also been released.
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- The Italian authorities kept the story secret until Pari
and Torretta were already on their way home, traveling via Kuwait, after
being turned over to the Italian Red Cross.
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- The two women were flown from Baghdad aboard a military
aircraft to Abdullah al-Mubarak military airbase in Kuwait, then transferred
to a civilian plane at the adjacent Kuwait airport for the flight home,
sources there told AFP.
-
- The aircraft bringing them from Baghdad touched down
at the airbase used by the US-led coalition in Iraq at around 9:15 pm (1815
GMT), the sources said.
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- "I have just rung their families to tell them,"
Berlusconi said earlier in Rome.
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- Almost simultaneously, Orascom announced that three Egyptians
captured last week had also been released.
-
- "We have information on the release of three hostages.
They may arrive in Baghdad tonight, but I am waiting to see them with my
own eyes," a spokesman said in Baghdad.
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- The three were kidnapped in western Iraq, together with
another Egyptian and two Iraqis employed by the same company and who were
released late Monday.
-
- Al-Arabiya television reported late Tuesday that another
two Orascom employees had been freed, but this could not be confirmed.
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- Orascom said earlier it was continuing "intensive
efforts" to secure their release.
-
- In Rome, thousands of people cheered and applauded outside
the home of one of the two Italian hostage's mother.
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- Al-Jazeera television aired footage of the two women,
who could first be seen at an undisclosed location before lifting their
veils and smiling as they were handed over.
-
- It was never clear who detained Pari, Torretta and the
two Iraqis. Their capture was claimed by two organisations, and statements
posted on websites claiming their deaths were dismissed by the Italian
authorities as not serious.
-
- In an uncanny succession of events, the releases confirmed
Tuesday came a day after an Iranian diplomat held by the same group detaining
two French reporters was released following a 55-day ordeal.
-
- But the life of British hostage Kenneth Bigley -- whose
two US colleagues were beheaded by the group of the most wanted man in
Iraq last week -- still hung in the balance.
-
- However, a British Muslim delegation said after a 48-hour
mission to Baghdad that they had received "very encouraging advises
and promises that we hope, inshallah (God willing), will lead to the release"
of the 62-year-old engineer.
-
- Bigley is detained by the Tawhid wal Jihad group of top
US foe Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who has a 25-million-dollar on his head.
-
- Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told his
Labour party's annual conference in Brighton, England that he refused to
apologize for the Iraq war, as he linked the future of Iraq to Britain's
national security.
-
- "I can't, sincerely at least, apologize for removing
Saddam," said Blair, who nevertheless regretted that intelligence
on the deposed president's alleged weapons of mass destruction was flawed.
-
- On the ground, the insurgent enclave of Fallujah, where
many of the foreign hostages are believed to have been held, was again
pounded by US aircraft overnight.
-
- "Three people were killed and six others wounded,"
said Dr Rafaa Hiad at the town's main hospital.
-
- A coalition spokesman denied the strike had caused any
casualties.
-
- In the capital, explosions rocked the Sunni Muslim Haifa
Street area, while US helicopter gunships struck the Shiite militia stronghold
of Sadr City, one of Baghdad's mostly densely populated districts.
-
- In southern Iraq, two British soldiers were killed in
a rare ambush of a military convoy in this area, a defence ministry spokesman
said in London.
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- The renewed fighting underscored concerns raised by Jordan's
King Abdullah II about the possibility of holding elections in January
as planned.
-
- The king, who delayed his own parliamentary elections
for two years, told the Paris daily Le Figaro: "It appears to me impossible
to organize indisputable elections in the chaos currently reigning in Iraq."
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- His remarks followed warnings from UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan and comments by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that the
insurgency was growing more dangerous as the election target date nears.
-
- US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld raised the possibility
last week that the polls might go ahead in most of Iraq, leaving out the
regions most affected by the violence.
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- But critics argue that polls in which some areas are
disenfranchised would not be the sort of "indisputable elections"
talked about by the Jordanian king.
-
- Addressing a UN symposium on reconstruction in Amman,
Iraq's interim planning minister Mehdi Hafez also complained that an international
drive to rebuild his war-shattered country has been discouraging because
billions of dollars pledged have not been spent.
-
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