Italy races to save hostages before deadline

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini appealed to Arab countries yesterday to help win the release of two Italian hostages as an apparent deadline to kill them drew near.

Underlining the gravity of the situation, a videotape showing militants slitting the throat of a Turkish hostage appeared on the internet yesterday.

The apparent deadline for the release of the two Italian women, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, was set by a group calling itself the Islamic Jihad Organisation in a website statement.

It said the two women, who worked on projects to help Iraqi children, would be killed unless Italy withdrew its troops from Iraq.

"Please help us free them," Mr Frattini pleaded with Arab countries, speaking at the Grand Mosque in Kuwait City on the first stop of a Gulf tour.

Following talks with Kuwaiti officials and religious leaders, he said: "Now Italy feels it is not alone. We have the solidarity of the Muslim world and Arab governments."

Italy, which has the third largest military contingent in Iraq with 2,700 troops, has repeatedly said it will not bow to demands by militants to pull out.

"We are there to help security on the ground only on the request of the Iraqis themselves, and we will leave Iraq when Iraqis will be able to keep security, democracy and so on," Mr Frattini told reporters, speaking in English.

Mr Frattini, whose next stop is the United Arab Emirates, said Italy had received no ransom demand.

Anti-Western militants have seized numerous foreign hostages in Iraq since April, but Ms Pari and Ms Torretta, both 29, are the first Western women to be kidnapped. More than two dozen hostages have been killed.

The authenticity of Sunday's statement could not be verified and unlike previous kidnappings no footage or photographs of the two has been released. The claim came on a website often used by militants, and such statements have sometimes proved false.

Australia also said yesterday it was urgently investigating a report two Australians had been seized in Iraq and would be killed within 24 hours unless Canberra withdrew its troops.

The report, originally issued by French news agency Agence France Presse, said a group called the Islamic Secret Army had abducted two Australian security workers along with two East Asians in Samarra in southern Iraq.

"We are aware of the report and our embassy in Baghdad is investigating," a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra said.

Australia has around 850 troops in Iraq.

Guerillas in Iraq have kidnapped people from over two dozen countries since April as part of a campaign to drive foreign troops and firms out.

The Italians were seized after two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, were captured in Iraq on August 20. France has won unprecedented support from the Arab world which has publicly demanded the reporters be freed.

"As you know, we have established... all possible contacts, links and dialogue, although we have not had direct contact," Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said yesterday.

"What we get from these contacts and this dialogue, although we must remain cautious, is that Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot are still alive and are being well treated."