by Denis Barnett
ROME, Aug 27 (AFP) - Italy was in shock Friday at the execution of a kidnapped journalist in Iraq, described by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as a return "to the dark times of barbarism," but he pledged Italian troops would stay.
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called the killing of Enzo Baldoni on state radio Friday as a "horrendous act which however will not affect our commitment in Iraq".
Frattini said the group which killed Baldoni, calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq, "is a terrorist organisation which has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with civil or religious authorities (in Iraq), even the most extreme, for example (radical Shiite cleric) Moqtada Al Sadr".
"They were terrorists, purely and simply," said Frattini, who was scheduled to address Italian parliamentarians about the killing later Friday.
"Italy`s commitment, cannot and must not change, for two reasons: We are in Iraq because the (Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi government asked us to be there. We are there on a peace mission, as is the case in Afghanistan and Kosovo. We are there for the good of the Iraqi people."
However, the killing is likely to reopen debate over the involvement of Italy`s nearly 3,000 troops in Iraq, an unpopular decision by Berlusconi`s government which provoked massive street protests in Italian cities last year.
"Nobody understands why Italian troops remain in Iraq fighting a crazy and misquided war," said Pierluigi Castagnetti, leader of the centre-left Daisy opposition group in parliament.
Left-leaning daily La Repubblica said the killing should force the government to reflect on its role alongside occupying US-led coalition forces, which it said robbed its foreign policy of being able to play "an active and effective role to help the United States" out of the crisis.
The mourning for Baldoni even spilled over into the world of the Olympic Games in Athens, where Italy`s footballers were due to play Iraq in a play-off for a bronze medal on Friday.
The head of the Italian Olympic Committee, Mario Pescante, told state television the committee had turned down a request by the Italian delegation that its athletes be allowed to wear a black armband in mourning for Baldoni and to protest his killing.
"It would not be in keeping with the spirit or historical practice of the Olympic Games," Pescante said.
However, delegation head Raffaele Pagnozzi was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying Italian athletes had been authorised to wear armbands.
"We will go into the stadium with the armbands, they would have to rip our arms off to stop us," Pagnozzi was quoted as saying.
Berlusconi, who has himself been directly targeted by death threats from Islamic extremists because of his staunch support for the US-led invasion of Iraq, described the killing as "an inhuman act which in one fell swoop wipes out centuries of civilization and returns us to the dark times of barbarism".
Italy has been in shock and anguish since news of the killing broke late Thursday on the Qatar-based channel Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel.
Al Jazeera said it had received a videotape showing the journalist after his execution, but had decided not to release it as it would be too shocking for viewers.
A statement from the killers said the decision "was taken after the refusal by Italy to reply favourably to the demand (by the group) to withdraw its soldiers from Iraq within 48 hours."
Baldoni`s captors had on Tuesday threatened to kill their hostage unless Italy withdrew its troops from Iraq within 48 hours.
Baldoni is the second Italian hostage to be killed in Iraq. In April, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of four private security guards kidnapped near Baghdad, was executed in a video released by his abductors.
The three other hostages were released in an operation by coalition forces a month later.