Gunmen reportedly kidnap journalist

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen seized an Italian journalist in central Baghdad on Friday, lying in wait for her outside a mosque where she was covering a sermon, then sweeping her into a car in a hail of gunfire, officials and colleagues said.

Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist for the newspaper Il Manifesto, was seized in the street near the Baghdad University compound, after interviewing refugees from Fallujah living in the neighborhood, then going to the mosque’s Friday prayers, colleague Barbara Schiavulli, an Italian radio journalist, told the Associated Press.

Schiavulli said she received a call from Sgrena’s cell phone while the kidnapping was apparently under way.

“I couldn’t hear anyone talking … I heard people shooting” and the sound of people splashing through the puddles left by a heavy overnight rain, Schiavulli said.

“I kept saying, ‘Giuliana, Giuliana,’ and no answer,” Schiavulli said.

Repeated calls after to Sgrena’s cell phone went unanswered, until a final call, when someone answered without speaking, then hung up, Schiavulli said.

The Italian government said it believed Sunni Arab militants might be behind the kidnapping.