The Arabic television station Al-Jazeera showed footage on Tuesday of what it said are four Italian hostages abducted by insurgents in Iraq, as the top Italian diplomat in Baghdad confirmed four nationals are missing.
”The Iraqi resistance has detained four Italians and demands the Italian government pull its troops from Iraq,” the Qatar-based station announced, over its video footage of the hostage.
A statement from the kidnappers called for ”a commitment to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq according to an explicit timetable” and a ”formal apology from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi” as well as the release of Iraqi detainees, the television station said.
The head of the Italian delegation in Baghdad, Gianludovico de Martino di Montegiordano, confirmed that four Italian civilians working for a private company have been missing in Iraq since Monday.
”Four Italians have been missing since yesterday [Tuesday] in Iraq,” the diplomat said.
”We have no news about them, but we are engaging in contacts to know their whereabouts.”
Italy’s Foreign Ministry in Rome later confirmed that four Italians working for a security company have been reported missing by their employer.
The ministry said it had been contacted by the men’s employer, a private United States security company called DTS, which said they had been missing since Monday. — Sapa-AFP