Italian journalist holders want Italy out of Iraq

One official in the Iraqi interim ministry of the interior confirmed the kidnapping of the Italian journalist Juliana Saghreina who works in Iraq on Friday afternoon while making interviews in al-Jadereyah quarters near Baghdad by gunmen who were in a bus.

According to preliminary information, a group opened fire at the car the journalist was inside of, to force it to stop, and she was kidnapped and taken to an unknown destination.

In a statement issued on the Internet, a group calling itself "The Islamic Jihad Organization" claimed responsibility for kidnapping the journalist and called on the Italian government to withdraw its forces from Iraq within 72 hours.

In France, the French parliamentarians extended a joint statement calling for the release of the French journalist Florence Obna and her Iraqi assistant Hussein al-Saadi who have been missing in Iraq since one month and expressed their great concern over their fate.