ROME, Aug 27 (AFP) - Italy will not give in to blackmail from Islamic extremists in Iraq, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told a parliamentary committee on Friday after the killing of an Italian journalist by Iraqi insurgents who demanded that Rome withdraw its troops from the country.
"Terrorist blackmail cannot influence us," Frattini said, reporting on the killing of journalist Enzo Baldoni to a joint parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and defence.
Italy's 3,000 soldiers in southern Iraq "will stay there as long as Iraqi Prime Minister Iyal Allawi wants them", Frattini added.
The minister told the committee Baldoni's execution, announced late on Thursday, had taken the Rome authorities by surprise as "contacts had been established, which had already been used in the past, with certain Islamic groups".
There were "elements which allowed us to think there was a climate of collaboration" on gaining Baldoni's release, added Frattini.
The minister said it was unclear "why there was a sudden interruption in contacts" shortly before the announcement, broadcast by Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera, that Baldoni had been executed by his captives.
He also told the committee that Al-Jazeera had been given a digital photograph showing the journalist's body, not a video as previously reported.
The minister played down reports that Al-Jazeera had chosen not to show the image, or images, of Baldoni's body because they were "too cruel".
The journalist had not been beheaded as some media reports suggested, he said.
Frattini said efforts were underway to retrieve Baldoni's body and have it repatriated to Italy.