A bomb blast rocked an Italian convoy at a base in southern Iraq on Thursday, killing three Italian soldiers and a Romanian, the Defense Ministry said. The roadside bomb targeted a four-vehicle convoy on its way to relieve troops at an Iraqi police station in the city of Nasiriyah, the ministry said in a statement. One of the vehicles was destroyed, killing the four soldiers and seriously injuring at least one more passenger.Premier Silvio Berlusconi said he was "profoundly grieved" by the deaths. Center-left leader Romano Prodi, who will head the next Italian government, said in a statement that "this tragedy strikes at all of Italy" and he shared the pain of the victims' families.
Lawmakers from the extremist parties of the center-left coalition seized on the news to criticize Italy's decision to send troops to Iraq and demand that the government quicken the withdrawal of its military contingent there. "Today's attack that caused the deaths of Italian soldiers is an additional loss that Berlusconi's wicked choice to stand by his friend (President) Bush brings today to our country," Communist lawmaker Marco Rizzo was quoted as saying by the Apcom news agency.
Prodi opposed the war and has pledged to bring Italian troops home by the end of the year. Italy already has begun withdrawing troops under Berlusconi, who also was prepared to end the Italian participation in the multinational force this year.
The Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry condemned "the terrorist attack" and expressed its condolences to the family of the Romanian soldier. The Romanian Defense Ministry identified the soldier as corporal Bogdan Hancu, a 28-year-old military policeman from the eastern city of Iasi. He is Romania's first combat casualty in Iraq. The country has 860 troops in Iraq as part of the multinational force.
The attack brings the number of Italian military deaths since the Iraq war began in 2003 to 30, including 19 killed in the bombing of a military barracks in November 2003. The deaths also include intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, who was shot in March 2005 by U.S. soldiers as he was escorting an Italian journalist to the Baghdad airport after securing her release from Iraqi captors.
More than 2,000 Italian troops are stationed in Nasiriyah.
Since the start of the war, at least 212 foreign soldiers have been killed in Iraq. At least 2,393 U.S. military members have died.