IRAQ: Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was freed by her captors yesterday but US forces in Iraq mistakenly opened fire on the convoy taking her to safety, wounding her and killing an Italian secret service agent.
Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said he had immediately summoned the US ambassador, declaring someone had to take responsibility for American soldiers opening fire.
Mr Berlusconi, one of President Bush's staunchest supporters in Iraq, told a news conference that the agent had been shot dead by US forces at a checkpoint and that Sgrena had been wounded in the shoulder.
In Washington the Pentagon said "multinational forces" had opened fire on a speeding vehicle in Baghdad, causing the death and wounding Sgrena.
"This news, which should have been a moment of celebration, has been ruined by this firefight," said Gabriele Polo, editor of Sgrena's Il Manifesto paper, a Rome-based communist daily.
"An Italian agent has been killed by an American bullet. A tragic demonstration which we never wanted that everything that's happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad," he told Sky Italia television, struggling to fight back tears.
Sgrena (57) was kidnapped on February 4th. Insurgents later released a video of her sobbing and wringing her hands as she pleaded for Italian troops to leave Iraq.
In a new video aired on al-Jazeera yesterday, Sgrena was shown wearing a black dress and sitting in front of a table with a plate of fruit. The station said Sgrena thanked her captors on the tape for treating her well.
Sgrena was one of two female western journalists abducted in Baghdad this year. Florence Aubenas of France's Libération was seized along with her Iraqi driver on January 5th.
Aubenas appeared in a videotape distributed by her captors this week, looking distraught and exhausted.
More than 150 foreigners, including several western journalists, have been seized by insurgents over the past year.
Most have been freed but many have been killed, sometimes in beheadings that were filmed and posted on the internet.
The kidnappings have highlighted the lawlessness gripping large areas of Iraq where insurgents mount frequent attacks. Crime is rife and Iraqi forces have little control.
Insurgents trying to overthrow Iraq's US-backed government mounted fresh attacks yesterday. In southern Iraq, guerrillas shot dead a Bulgarian soldier, officials in Sofia said.
In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, a car bomb killed one civilian, and in the mainly Shia southern Iraq town of Budair, the local police chief was assassinated. The Polish military, which is in charge of security in the area, said Col Ghaib Hadab Zarib was shot dead by gunmen.
In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb exploded near a US military convoy. Al-Qaeda's wing in Iraq issued an internet statement claiming responsibility for the blast and saying it was a suicide bombing. The US military said it had no immediate information on any casualties.