BAGHDAD, 29 September 2004 — Two female Italian aid workers seized in Baghdad three weeks ago were set free yesterday along with kidnapped Iraqis and Egyptians in a flurry of releases, but there was no word on an abducted Briton who remained under threat of death.
The two freed Italian aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, were safe and well, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said. They and two Iraqi colleagues seized with them had been freed after “difficult” negotiations, he said.
Within minutes of their release, an Egyptian telephone company said four of six of its engineers snatched last week had also been set free. The last two were also set free later.
But the fate of British hostage, engineer Kenneth Bigley, who was seized 12 days ago and has been threatened with beheading, remained unclear and France issued an anguished plea for the release of two abducted French journalists.
Italians greeted the release of their two nationals with joy after a hostage ordeal that transfixed the nation.
“I gave the families the news a short while ago,” Berlusconi told Italian state television. “They are well.” “At long last this affair is over,” a delighted prime minister later told Parliament to loud cheers.
Pari and Torretta, both aged 29, were taken at gunpoint from their central Baghdad offices on Sept. 7 in a brazen kidnapping that jolted the thousands of foreigners working in Iraq.
A Kuwaiti daily said earlier yesterday the women’s captors had agreed to free the hostages for a $1 million ransom. The government in Rome declined comment.
Al-Jazeera television aired footage of the women, who were due to fly to Rome yesterday evening, after they were released. It showed them wearing black veils, which they later lifted, smiling and chatting.
Despite the flurry of releases, which follows the freeing on Monday of an Iranian diplomat kidnapped nearly two months ago, there has been no word on the fate of Bigley, 62, abducted by gunmen with two American colleagues from their Baghdad home.
Leaders of Britain’s Muslim community said their mercy mission to Baghdad may help free Bigley but warned that any dealing with captors was undermined by US strikes in the country.
“We have had very encouraging advice and promises that we hope, insha’allah (God willing), will lead to the release of Ken and his safe return to his family,” said Daoud Abdullah of the Muslim Council of Britain.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin urged the Islamic Army in Iraq, a militant group which snatched French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot on Aug. 20, to heed the example of the other captors.
“As I hear of the release of the Italian hostages ... I ask the kidnappers of our countrymen in Iraq to hear the voice of France, the voice of peace, of the sovereignty of people, of respect of religion and of the convictions of everyone,” Raffarin said.
Outside Baghdad, US warplanes bombarded rebel-held areas, targeting fighters loyal to Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, while Jordan’s king said Iraq was too dangerous for elections to be held in January.
King Abdallah, one of Washington’s staunchest Middle East allies, said he did not see how national elections could go ahead amid such violence. His comments came after US Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted the insurgency was worsening.
“It seems impossible to me to organize indisputable elections in the chaos we see today,” the king told French daily Le Figaro before meeting President Jacques Chirac in Paris.
“If the elections take place in the current disorder, the best-organized faction will be that of the extremists and the result will reflect that advantage.”
The United States downplayed comments by Abdallah. The State Department said neither Washington nor the interim Iraqi government had altered their belief that credible elections can and will be held in all parts of the country on that timeline and stressed that stabilization efforts were being enhanced to ensure the safety of voters and election workers.
“We have not changed our view, nor has the Iraqi government changed its determination, to have these elections on time in January and throughout the country,” spokesman Richard Boucher said. “That is what we are supporting and that is what we are going to be moving forward on.”
Boucher said he had not seen the king’s comments but took issue with the suggestion that the United States and Iraqi authorities would allow the current instability to continue, noting that an active campaign to stamp out unrest and insurgents was now under way.
In Fallujah, the military said it had hit a house used by Zarqawi’s followers, but did not say how many were killed.
In Sadr City, a district of northeastern Baghdad, residents said aircraft and tanks bombarded homes in some neighborhoods. In a statement, US forces said they had conducted “precision strikes” on various targets.
In the southern city of Basra, insurgents ambushed a convoy of armored Land Rovers, killing two British soldiers, a British Army spokesman said.
— Additional input from agencies
