ITALY: Italy will not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan as demanded by the kidnappers of an Italian journalist, Italy's defence minister has said.
The kidnappers of Gabriele Torsello have threatened to kill him unless all Italian troops leave Afghanistan by tomorrow - the end of Ramadan.
Torsello was seized on October 12th by five gunmen as he was travelling by bus from Lashkar Gah to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
Since then, he has been in telephone contact several times with personnel at a hospital in Lashkar Gah run by an Italian aid agency called Emergency.
His kidnappers initially wanted to trade him for an Afghan convert to Christianity, Adbul Rahman, who was granted asylum in Italy earlier this year.
Mr Rahman had escaped a possible death sentence for becoming a Christian. Torsello is a convert to Islam.
Italian defence minister Arturo Parisi ruled out withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
"We are in Afghanistan and we will stay there," Mr Parisi said. "It is the Afghans who ask us to.
"If we pulled out every time someone kidnapped an Italian, we wouldn't be able to send our troops on any mission."
Italy has about 1,800 troops in Kabul and the west of Afghanistan as part of a Nato-led International Security Assistance force.
A freelance photo-journalist who has visited many parts of the world over the past 10 years, Torsello had been travelling within Afghanistan for several months wearing a black beard and Afghan clothes.
He has a home in London and is married with one child.
The National Union of Journalists has joined calls for the release of the photographer, who goes by the professional name of Kash and is a member of the union.