BAGHDAD, Sept 7: Armed men kidnapped two Italian women working for a charity at gunpoint from their Baghdad offices on Tuesday along with two Iraqis. The two women, identified as Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, were working for the Italian charity, Un Ponte Per Baghdad (Bridge to Baghdad), while the Iraqis worked for a non-governmental organization called Inter source.

Witnesses said the kidnappers drove up in three cars to the offices of the two organizations in the evening and seized the four hostages. In Rome, officials said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had immediately been informed of the abduction and was returning to Rome from northern Italy to convene an emergency cabinet meeting.

Italy was a key supporter of last year's invasion and still maintains 3,000 troops and police in the south. Its involvement with the US forces has already seen Italian nationals targeted in the spate of kidnappings that has hit Iraq since April.

Journalist Enzo Baldoni was abducted by a militant group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq and executed on Aug 26 after the government in Rome rejected an ultimatum to withdraw its troops.

Mr Berlusconi's hawkish line has come in for mounting criticism at home. Critics have unfavourably compared his government's efforts to secure Mr Baldoni's release with France's intense lobbying for the freedom of two of its journalists held hostage by the same militant group. Ironically the aid organization for which Pari and Torretta worked is a long-standing opponent of Western policy towards Iraq. -AFP