World

Freed Hostages Arrive In Italy

September 29, 2004 / 6:55 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Two Italian women aid workers freed in Iraq after being held hostage for three weeks arrived in Italy on Tuesday, as the entire nation celebrated their safe release.

The two, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, arrived on a Falcon 20 plane at Ciampino military airport in Rome shortly after 11 p.m. (2100GMT).

Five other hostages were also Tuesday, raising hopes for at least 18 foreigners still in captivity. But insurgents showed no sign of easing their blood-soaked campaign against the U.S. presence in Iraq, staging a show of defiance in Samarra and striking twice with deadly force in Basra.

It was unclear what prompted the two separate groups of kidnappers to release the hostages, and whether any ransom had been paid. It was the second day in a row that foreigners were freed.

The two Italians were wearing full black veils that revealed only their eyes as they were received by the Italian Red Cross in a Baghdad neighborhood, according to video broadcast by the Arab news station Al-Jazeera.

Looking dazed but smiling, Simona Torretta lifted her veil and repeated, "Thank you," in Arabic. Simona Pari hesitated before also lifting her veil.

In other developments:

American forces unleashed a strike Tuesday against a suspected hide-out used by associates of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Fallujah. Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned that a "decisive military solution" could soon befall the rebel stronghold if a political one is not found.

In Samarra, gunmen carrying flags of Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad organization surfaced in force Tuesday for the first time since U.S. troops briefly entered it in a deal brokered with tribal leaders.

In Baghdad, American troops and insurgents clashed Tuesday along central Baghdad's Haifa Street, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said, and half a dozen explosions rocked the city. There was no immediate word on casualties. There was a report of an Iraqi killed in a U.S. strike on Sadr City.

Near the southern city of Basra, insurgents attacked a British military convoy, killing two soldiers, the Ministry of Defense in London said. Also in Basra Tuesday, gunmen killed five members of Iraq's intelligence agency as they were returning a civilian freed from kidnappers to his family.

In other violence, a car bomb exploded in Ramadi, west of Baghdad as a U.S. military convoy was passing by, damaging one American vehicle. A Turkish truck driver has been killed in an attack near the Iraqi city of Mosul, news reports said Tuesday. Three Iraqis were wounded in an overnight mortar attack on a base housing Bulgarian troops in central Iraq.

Egypt said Tuesday that Iraqi kidnappers had freed one Egyptian hostage and were expected to release three others shortly.

The U.S. military says it's holding a suspected leader of an Iraqi insurgent cell that has claimed responsibility for the beheading of 12 Nepalese hostages. Authorities have also detained an Iraqi citizen on suspicion of spying for Iran.

A Colorado congresswoman, Democrat Diana DeGette, is calling for an investigation into allegations that soldiers, who are near the end of their time in the military, are being threatened with deployment to Iraq unless they re-enlist.

Jordan's King Abdullah II said in an interview published Tuesday that elections in Iraq are impossible because of the current chaos. The European Union will support preparations for elections in Iraq even if violence keeps the vote from taking place throughout that country, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said he realized the war in Iraq had divided Britain, but insisted he could not sincerely apologize for helping topple Saddam Hussein.

In Rome, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi went before Parliament to announce the release of the two aid workers and two Iraqis kidnapped in Baghdad three weeks ago.

"Finally a moment of joy," Berlusconi said, as the assembly broke into applause. "The two girls are well and will be able to return to their loved ones tonight."

Pari and Torretta were abducted Sept. 7 in a bold raid on the Baghdad office of their aid agency "Un Ponte Per ..." ("A Bridge To ..."). Two Iraqis, Raad Ali Aziz and Mahnaz Bassam, were also seized.

Two different groups claimed responsibility for the abductions, demanding the withdrawal of Italian troops from the country or the release of Iraqi female prisoners. The same two groups later put out Web statements saying the two Italians had been killed, but the Italian government said the claims were not credible.

News of the release came after a Muslim leader from Italy met with an influential Muslim association in Baghdad on Tuesday to press for their freedom, though it was not immediately known if there was a connection. The two women, both 29-year-olds, had been working on school and water projects in Iraq.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai al-Aam had reported Tuesday that they could be released by Friday in return for a $1 million ransom. But Al-Arabiya TV, citing unidentified sources involved in the negotiations, said no ransom was paid.

Pope John Paul II, who recently urged that all hostages held in Iraq be freed, expressed "great joy" over the release of the Italian aid workers, the Vatican said.

Four Egyptian telecommunications workers abducted last week have also been freed, their parent company, Orascom, announced in Cairo. One of the Egyptians was released Monday and the rest on Tuesday, said the company.

Four Iraqis have also been released, but the company is still trying to win the freedom of two other Egyptian employees kidnapped around the same time.

The Egyptian charge d'affaires in Baghdad, Farouq Mabrouk, said the kidnappings were "motivated by financial reasons." But an Orascom spokesman declined to comment on whether a ransom had been paid.

More than 140 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq - some by anti-U.S. insurgents and others by criminals seeking ransom. At least 26 have been killed, including two Americans whose beheadings were recorded on grisly video footage and posted on the Internet last week.