Italy sets date to start Iraq withdrawal

updated 4:21 p.m. ET March 31, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq — already thin as countries have pulled their troops out of the troubled nation — suffered another blow when Italy detailed its withdrawal of the first 300 of its more than 3,000 troops from Iraq for in September, while Ukraine announced that his country will leave Iraq by the end of the year and Bulgaria said it would begin cutting troop levels in the summer.

Meanwhile, violence continued as a suicide car bomber blew himself up near Iraqi security officials guarding a shrine filled with Shiite pilgrims marking a major religious holiday. The blast killed two soldiers and three bystanders — including a small child — and confirmed fears the country’s Sunni-led insurgency would target the festival.

“There is already a plan for the withdrawal of 300 of our soldiers, without weakening our presence (in Iraq), at the end of September,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in an interview on state television RAI on Thursday.

Winding down
Berlusconi, a strong ally of the United States, first announced earlier this month that he planned to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq in September, setting off alarm bells in London and Washington. But he later appeared to backtrack, saying there was no fixed date for any pullout.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said his country will leave Iraq by the end of the year. Ukraine had already decided to begin pulling out its 1,650 troops, the fourth-largest non-U.S. contingent in Iraq. But the timing of the complete withdrawal had remained unclear.

Also Thursday, Bulgaria said it planned to cut the number of its troops in Iraq in July. But it said it would extend the smaller mission until the end of the year.

Countries around the world have pulled out of Iraq, pressured by growing criticism of the mission at home and threats from militant groups — including kidnappings and beheadings.

In another blow to the American-led mission, a U.S. presidential commission issued a report saying the country’s spy agencies were “dead wrong” in most of their judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction before the war.

In Romania, which still has 800 soldiers in Iraq, Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu refused to say Thursday whether he would consider withdrawing his soldiers after kidnappers released a video showing three kidnapped Romanian journalists and a fourth unidentified person — possibly an American.

The video, aired Wednesday by Al-Jazeera satellite television, showed three kidnapped Romanian journalists and a fourth unidentified person — possibly an American — with guns pointed at them.

Tariceanu said no demands had yet been made for the journalists.

Blast targets religious pilgrims
Violence continued in the war-torn nation, with the suicide bombing in Tuz Khormato, 55 miles south of Kirkuk. The blast occurred near an Iraqi Army checkpoint set up to guard a Shiite shrine where pilgrims were celebrating Thursday’s religious festival. Five people were killed and 16 others were injured, police and hospital officials said.

Across the country Thursday, Shiite Muslims observed a religious holiday marking the end of a 40-day mourning period for one of Shiites’ most important saints, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, Imam Hussein, who was killed in a seventh century battle.

The biggest gathering is in the southern city of Karbala, where hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims visited two holy shrines and marched and beat their chests with their fists in a sign of mourning. Police, on the alert for attacks, closed the streets to vehicle traffic, set up checkpoints and frisked people for weapons.  No major incidents were reported.

But gunmen did open fire late Wednesday on a truck carrying faithful near Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad. One person was killed. Earlier that same day, gunmen fired on pilgrims in southern Iraq, killing one person.

On Monday, two separate attacks on pilgrims left four dead, including two police officers guarding the faithful.

State of emergency extended
Ongoing violence led interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to extend a state of emergency until the end of April. First announced nearly five months ago, the order affects all of Iraq except Kurdish-run areas in the north.

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