http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20050216/ts_nm/iraq_dc
Italian Hostage Begs for Help; Shi'ites to Name PM
45 minutes ago
By Luke Baker
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents released a tape on Wednesday showing an Italian journalist seized in Baghdad earlier this month pleading for her life and calling on foreign forces to withdraw.
The undated tape of 57-year-old Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter for Rome-based newspaper Il Manifesto, came as the winners of last month's election, a religious Shi'ite-led alliance, were expected to declare their choice for prime minister.
"I beg you, put an end to the occupation. I beg the Italian government and the Italian people to put pressure on the government to pull out," Sgrena says on the tape, speaking in Italian and holding her hands in front of her in supplication.
It is the first tape of Sgrena since she was snatched on Feb. 4.
The emergence of the tape underlines the dire security situation afflicting Iraq (news - web sites) even as the country tries to move forward with the process of forming a new government following its first post-Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) election held on Jan. 30.
The United Iraqi Alliance, a religion-based coalition which won 48 percent of the vote, was expected to name Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a former exile and head of the Dawa Party, as its candidate for prime minister later on Wednesday.
"So far it's not official, but the majority of the factions in the alliance will choose Jaafari," a source in the Dawa Party said. "It could be announced today."
Jaafari, a mild-mannered physician whose family lives in London, was expected to meet senior Kurdish figures later as part of the process of forming the government.
The Kurds came second in the poll, winning 25 percent of votes. If they form an alliance with the main Shi'ite bloc then together they would control two-thirds of the 275 seats in the National Assembly, enough to decide the top government posts.
Current interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, in an interview with Reuters, said he expected the next government to be Islamist, meaning it would have Islam at its root and seek to have Islam as one of the main sources of law.
"The United Iraqi Alliance are Islamists. Some are liberal, sure, but they tend to be more Islamist," Allawi, a secular Shi'ite who has developed close ties with Washington during his six months in power, told Reuters in an interview.
"The Iraqi people, 50 percent of the Iraqi people, decided that they want to see an Islamic government in Iraq and we must respect that," he said.
OIL ATTACKS
In an interview with Reuters last week, Jaafari indicated he would reach out to Iraq's minority Sunni Arab population if he were to take a senior position in the next government. Sunnis largely boycotted the vote or didn't turn up for fear of violence and will now be almost completely marginalized in the National Assembly. But all the major parties have indicated they want the Sunnis involved in shaping the political process.
Iraq's government is not expected to take office for several weeks, but already the top item on the agenda is security, with minds turning to when U.S. and other foreign forces might begin to withdraw after nearly two years in Iraq.
But with insurgents still carrying out daily car bombings and other attacks and kidnappings common, U.S. and other troops are expected to remain for many months if not years to come and have dismissed the idea of setting a timetable to withdraw.
The release of the tape of Sgrena appealing for her life underlined the security threat.
"I beg you to help me ... I beg my family to help me, and all those who stood with me to oppose the war and the occupation," she said, breaking down in tears as she kneeled in front of a white background.
"Everyone must withdraw from Iraq. No one should come to Iraq any longer because all foreigners, all Italians are considered enemies. Please do something for me," she says.
Sgrena is at least the eighth Italian to have been taken hostage in Iraq. Another journalist, Enzo Baldoni, was seized in August last year and later killed by his captors.
More than 120 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq over the past year and at least a third have been killed.
As well as kidnappings and car bomb attacks, insurgents have also carried out frequent sabotage strikes against Iraq's infrastructure as part of efforts to set back the country's reconstruction.
Iraq, which sits on the world's second largest oil reserves, is dependent on oil revenues to finance its rehabilitation. On Wednesday, saboteurs attacked a pipeline near the key refinery at Baiji, north of Baghdad.
Flows along Iraq's main northern export pipeline to Turkey were also interrupted, just days after they resumed following months out of commission due to sabotage.
(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, Waleed Ibrahim and Omar Anwar in Baghdad, Sabah al-Bazzee in Baiji and Crispian Balmer in Rome)
You mean the UN is corrupt?
