by Sammy Ketz
BAGHDAD, Sept 1 (AFP) - Islamic militants released seven truck drivers held captive for six weeks Wednesday, a day after 12 kidnapped Nepalese were slaughtered by their captors, while mortar fire greeted the opening of Iraq's new parliament.
Paris meanwhile pursued its frantic efforts to free two kidnapped French reporters, while the horrific killings of the Nepalese sparked violence in Kathmandu.
The drivers -- three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian -- were freed in the restive city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, by a group calling itself the Black Banners Brigade of the Secret Islamic Army (SIA), an AFP correspondent said.
They appeared happy and healthy as they spoke at length with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya channel.
The Egyptian said they were taught religion by their captors, who declared victory in a statement after the drivers' Kuwaiti company pledged to halt its activities in Iraq.
Their release came just hours after a Turkish driver held hostage since August 7 was freed by the same group.
Top was abducted on the road between Tikrit and Mosul, in northern Iraq, by a group calling itself the Abdel Kader Al-Gilani Brigade, which claims to be part of the SIA.
Their releases stood in stark contrast with killings of the Nepalese, whose deaths were announced on an Islamic website Tuesday.
The claim was accompanied by pictures of the beheading of a blindfolded hostage, including one image of his bloodied head being held up like a trophy by a hooded captor.
The others were apparently shot.
The gruesome pictures sparked a wave of violence in Nepal. Thousands of protestors some chanting "Punish the Muslims!, rampaged through Kathmandu, setting fire to a mosque and Arab targets and ransacking employment agencies.
Two men were shot and slightly wounded by security guards when they tried to storm the Egyptian embassy, which represents Iraqi interests in the Himalayan kingdom, Nepali police said.
The Nepalese had left their cash-strapped Himalayan country and come to Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners. Their brutal murders marked the largest killing of foreign hostages since the start of Iraq's hostage-taking crisis.
The French government also continued intense diplomatic efforts to secure the release of two French reporters abducted on August 20.
The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed their capture and had given Paris until Tuesday night to rescind a controversial ban on Islamic headscarves in state schools.
But Paris refused and there was no word on the fates of the journalists Wednesday afternoon.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier was in Qatar Wednesday on the latest leg of frantic Middle East tour aimed at securing their release.
Pope John Paul II Wednesday joined worldwide appeals for the pair to be freed as the French government held crisis meetings in Paris to save the lives of Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot.
President Jacques Chirac, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi for informal talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, reiterated a "solemn appeal" for the men's release.
The detention of the two French journalists drew domestic wrath and international condemnation. Several extremist Islamic organisations have even praised France's anti-war stance and demanded the release of the reporters.
Meanwhile, mortar fire greeted the opening of Iraq's interim parliament -- dismissed by detractors as a weak rubber stamp for an unelected government but hailed by admirers as a step nearer democracy.
As the 100-member body gathered for its first milestone session in the heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government and US embassy, seven mortar bombs exploded inside the sealed-off area, wounding a security guard at a checkpoint.
Prominent Iraqi politician and disgraced former Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi said he escaped unharmed after an assassination attempt on his way to the parliament and that two of his bodyguards were wounded.
Despite the attacks, the parliament members went ahead with their swearing-in ceremony, inaugurating the body due to advise Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's cabinet until general elections scheduled for January.
A policeman was also killed in a mortar attack on a government building in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul which also wounded 18 people.
An aide to firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose fighters have rebelled against the new Iraqi government and US forces in the country, was also assassinated Tuesday on the same road linking Baghdad to the holy Shiite city of Najaf in central Iraq where Chalabi was apparently attacked.