US forces wound, freed Italian journalist in Iraq

An injured woman is carried across the debris of a bakery to her home after a booby-trapped motorcycle parked outside exploded yesterday, in Baghdad. Four Iraqis, including one woman, were wounded when the motorcycle rigged with explosives blew up in the Baghdad Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya, police said. PHOTO: AFP

Sgrena, 56, was greeted by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who boarded the plane after it came to a halt at the capital's Ciampino airport. Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni and other officials were also present.

The journalist, who was wounded in the shoulder, was lowered from the small Falcon plane by two people, and taken to a waiting ambulance.

Sgrena was to undergo surgery at Rome's Celio military hospital.

"They never treated me badly," the journalist told colleagues of left-wing daily Il Manifesto who greeted her inside the plane.

In Iraq, seven Iraqi soldiers were killed in various attacks yesterday, security sources said, as a daytime curfew was imposed in the restive town of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

The worst attack left five soldiers dead when their camp in Al-Duluiyah, north of the capital, was hit by mortars at about 03:00 am (0000 GMT) as the new army recruits got up for training, said Captain Assad Saddad.

Another soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb blew up as they were attempting to diffuse it near the northern oil refining town of Baiji, said Captain Ali Yussif of the army.

Giuliana Sgrena was freed by her captors on Friday 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, one of President Bush's staunchest supporters in Iraq, immediately summoned the American ambassador, demanding explanations and declaring someone had to take responsibility.

US forces at a checkpoint shot dead the agent and wounded Sgrena in the shoulder while she was being driven to Baghdad airport after being freed and handed over to three Italian secret service officers, Berlusconi told a news conference.