Italy drums up Arab support to free Iraq hostages

Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, on a Gulf tour to try to save two Italian women hostages in Iraq, yesterday called for their release but said Rome would never listen to any kidnappers threats.

A prominent Muslim leader began a hunger strike in Doha yesterday to press militants holding charity workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta hostage since September 7, Qatar-based Al Jazeera television reported.

"We will never listen to the threats of kidnappers," Al Arabiya quoted Mr Frattini as saying in an interview translated into Arabic. "We demand the liberation of the two Italian hostage who were undertaking humanitarian work, in the hope this request will be honoured."

A deadline set by one of the groups claiming to hold the two women expired on Monday night with no word on their fate. The pair, the first Western women to be kidnapped, were seized from their Baghdad office last week.

The Islamic Jihad Organisation said in a Web site statement on Sunday the two, both 29 years old, would be killed in 24 hours unless Italy withdrew its troops from Iraq.

Mr Frattini rallied support for their release during talks with officials and Islamic figures in Qatar, the third stop of his Arab tour yesterday.

"The emphasis should be on coexistence of religions, based on dialogue and understanding, not this confrontation and clash of civilisations," Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, seen as one of the most influential clerics in the Arab world, told Mr Frattini. Mr Frattini responded: "Your words reflect the true spirit of Islam and is appreciated by me personally, the Italian people and the millions of Muslims in Italy today."

Mr Frattini, whose country has the third largest military contingent in Iraq with 2,700 troops, said Rome would only pull out its forces if Iraq requested it.

"We will withdraw our troops if the Iraqi people ask us," Mr Frattini told reporters. "Nobody knows who they (kidnappers) are but we are using various methods to get our message to them."

Abassi Madani, leader of Algeria's dissolved Islamic Salvation Front, said he had started a hunger strike to demand the release of the two women and two French journalists kidnapped in Iraq last month.

"This is for the freedom of those who should be free," Mr Madani, who lives in Doha, told Al Jazeera television.

Underlining the gravity of the situation, a tape showing the killing of a Turkish hostage by militants loyal to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appeared on the Internet on Monday.