ROME, May 17: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was in hot water on Monday for attending a victory party for his football team while his troops suffered casualties during fierce fighting with militiamen in southern Iraq.

"The dirty war in Iraq has killed another Italian soldier, a 23-year-old, while Berlusconi was celebrating the scudetto (the Italian championship title) won by AC Milan," said Oliviero Diliberto, national secretary of the Communist Party. His comments came following an announcement that an Italian soldier who was injured in Iraq on Sunday had died overnight.

Matteo Vanzan, a 23-year-old corporal, died after being injured in fighting with militiamen in Nasiriyah, a development that increased pressure on the Berlusconi government to withdraw Italy's 3,000-strong contingent.

Matteo Vanzan's mother urged the government in a television interview to "bring the others home", adding: "It's not fair to leave them there to die." But Mr Berlusconi insisted on Monday that Italy's military presence in Iraq remained "indispensable" despite the death of the corporal.

In a message of sympathy to Vanzan's family, Mr Berlusconi said the man "died defending the values of freedom and democracy for which Italian contingents are engaged in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia". -AFP