BAGHDAD - Two female Italian hostages seized in Baghdad three weeks ago were freed on Tuesday and are safe, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.

The two aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both aged 29, were taken at gun-point from their central Baghdad offices on Sept. 7, in a brazen kidnapping which caused jitters among the thousands of foreigners working in Iraq.

Italian aid organization 'Un Ponte Per Baghdad' (A Bridge for Baghdad) volunteers Simona Pari, left, and Simona Torretta, are seen in this handout made available in Rome, Tuesday Sept. 7, 2004. Al-Jazeera announced Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2004 that the two Italian hostages and their Iraqi colleagues were released Tuesday in Iraq . (Reuters - Handout)

Several foreign hostages remain in Iraq, including British engineer Kenneth Bigley, who has been threatened with beheading.

The Tawhid wal-Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War) group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, America's number one enemy in Iraq, says it kidnapped Bigley and two Americans from their home in Baghdad 12 days ago.

The group, which has also claim responsibility for suicide bombing against U.S. and Iraqi security forces, demanded that female prisoners be released from jails in Iraq -- a demand that was not met.

The two Americans were subsequently beheaded and their deaths posted on the Internet.

There had been little word on the fate of the Italians since their abduction, along with two Iraqi colleagues, although Al-Rai al-Aam, a leading Kuwait daily, reported the kidnappers had agreed to their release in exchange for a $1 million ransom.

They were at least the sixth and seventh Italians to be kidnapped in Iraq. Four security guards were taken in April.

One of those was killed after Rome refused to give in to demands to withdraw its troops. The others were later freed.

Last month, Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni was killed by his captors after Rome again refused to pull its troops out.

While Bigley's fate remains uncertain, an Iranian diplomat kidnapped nearly two months ago was freed on Monday.

An Egyptian telecoms worker, one of six kidnapped last week, was also freed, Cairo's embassy in Baghdad said. Efforts were being made to have the remaining five released.

The Iranian's release raised hopes for the fate of two French journalists seized by the same group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, on Aug. 20.

U.S. BOMBARDMENT

U.S. warplanes bombarded rebel-held areas, targeting fighters loyal to Zarqawi, while Jordan's king said Iraq was too dangerous for elections to be held in January.

King Abdullah, one of Washington's staunchest Middle East allies, said he didn't see how national polls could go ahead amid such violence. His comments came after Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted the insurgency was worsening.

"It seems impossible to me to organize indisputable elections in the chaos we see today," the king told French daily Le Figaro before meeting President Jacques Chirac in Paris.

"If the elections take place in the current disorder, the best-organized faction will be that of the extremists and the result will reflect that advantage."

U.S. forces struck against militants across the country.

In Falluja, the military said it had hit a house used by Zarqawi's followers, who have claimed responsibility for several attacks in Iraq and the beheadings of foreign hostages.

It said the air strike targeted high-level members of the group, but did not say how many people were killed. The U.S. military last week claimed to have killed around 100 of Zarqawi's followers in the past few weeks.

In Sadr City, a poor Shi'ite Muslim district of northeastern Baghdad, residents said U.S. aircraft and tanks bombarded homes in some neighborhoods, ratcheting up operations against Shi'ite militiamen who have the area largely under their control.

The strikes wiped out the district's power, residents said.

In a statement, U.S. forces said they had conducted "precision strikes" on various targets, and at the same time denied reports on Arabic TV and in Western newspapers of heavy civilian casualties, with up to 10 killed and 46 wounded.

Separately, the military said it had captured an insurgent leader during a raid north of Baghdad. A statement said Hussein Salman Mohammad al-Jabburi was seized near Kirkuk on Monday.

In the southern city of Basra, insurgents ambushed a convoy of armored Land Rovers, killing two British soldiers, a British army spokesman said. The deaths raised to 25 the number of British troops killed in action in Iraq.

And in Ramadi, another insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, police and witnesses said a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle near a U.S. convoy, killing several people, although the reports could not immediately be verified.

Additional reporting by Fadil al-Badrani in Falluja and Tom Heneghan in Paris

© 2004 Reuters Ltd

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