Iraq group claims Italian hostage - web

DUBAI - A little-known Iraqi group said on Friday it had taken an Italian journalist hostage and set a 72 hour deadline for Italy to remove its troops, but did not make a specific threat to kill her, a Web statement said.

"We in the land of Islam, Iraq, give the Italian government 72 hours to get out of Iraq, otherwise the squadrons will have something else to say in the coming days," said a statement from the Islamic Jihad Organisation titled "about the imprisoning of the Italian journalist".

It was not possible to verify the statement, which first appeared on a site not used by the main Iraqi insurgent groups.

A group using the same name said in September it had killed two abducted Italian aid workers who were subsequently released by another group.

Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with the communist Rome newspaper Il Manifesto, was snatched from the street as she conducted interviews near Baghdad University. Gunmen pulled up alongside her vehicle, forced her driver and an Iraqi journalist out at gunpoint and drove off with Sgrena, police sources said.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Italy was already working to negotiate her release and he was going to meet the interior and defence ministers later.

"The capture of the Italian journalist is a message to the Italian government led by Berlusconi that you will not know security as long as there is any Italian soldier in Iraq," the statement, dated Friday, said.

The kidnapping comes just five days after Iraq held a historic election and amid evidence of a decline in militant attacks since the vote, when millions of Iraqis faced down insurgent threats to cast their ballots.

Sgrena is the eighth Italian to be kidnapped in Iraq and the first foreigner to be seized since Sunday's election.

- REUTERS