Italy doubts internet claims that hostages were murdered

TWO statements have surfaced on the internet from different groups, each claiming to have killed two kidnapped Italian aid workers.

The second statement said a video of the slaying of the two women, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, would be made public, but Italy cast doubt on both claims’ authenticity.

“Italian intelligence services believe these claims to be completely unreliable,” Enzo Bianco, the head of the parliament commission overseeing secret services, told Italian news agencies.

The first statement came Wednesday from a group calling itself the Islamic Jihad Organisation Iraq, which said it killed the two women because Italy had ignored demands to withdraw troops from Iraq.

A new statement yesterday was signed by a group named the Supporters of al-Zawahri, saying the heads of the two women - “criminal agents of Italian intelligence” - were “chopped off by knife without pity or mercy.”

It said it killed the women because its demands - the departure of Italian forces, the release of female prisoners in Iraq, and help in gaining freedom for female Chechen prisoners and all Arab detainees in Israel - were not met.

The gruesome hostage drama played out as fighting raged on in Iraq. At least 20 people - including three US soldiers - were killed and more than 100 wounded on Wednesday.

In Sadr City, US warplanes and helicopters roared overhead and residents said loud explosions could be heard for hours. Militia fighters returned fire with machine guns.

An American Bradley fighting vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and caught fire, according to a US military report. It was not clear if there were any casualties.

In the northeastern city of Mosul, gunmen killed a senior official of Iraq’s North Oil Co on Thursday.

Sana Toma Sulaiman, the deputy director of the company’s oil products department in Nineveh province, was shot dead as he headed to work, said Hazim Jallawi, a spokesman for the Nineveh governor’s office.