ITALY MOURNS AFGHANISTAN DEATHS
ITALY MOURNS AFGHANISTAN DEATHS
(ANSA) - Rome, July 29 - Italy on Thursday mourned two soldiers killed by a bomb seconds after they had defused another one on a road in Afghanistan Wednesday.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano immediately sent his condolences Wednesday to the families of Mauro Gigli, 42, from Sassari in Sardinia, and Pier Davide De Cillis, 33, from Bisceglie near Bari in Puglia.
Parliamentarians will salute the soldiers, both bomb defusal experts, when the government reports on the incident later Thursday.
Despite the losses, which brought Italy's military death toll in Afghanistan to 29 since 2004, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said "these actions reinforce the idea that we have to be there".
"Each time people die we wonder whether it's worth staying in that country. I say it's worth it".
Gigli and De Cillis were killed by a large bomb in northwestern Afghanistan, eight kilometres southeast of Herat.
The pair had just succeeded in defusing one IED (improvised explosive device) when they were hit by the blast of another one.
They died immediately while a woman soldier, Captain Federica Luciani from L'Aquila, was slightly hurt.
Italy currently has 3,150 troops deployed in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Most of the Italian troops are in the northwest of the country, in the city and province of Herat, where Italy heads ISAF's Regional Command West.
The latest deaths led to some calls, mostly from the far left, for the government to pull Italy's troops out of Afghanistan.
But the main government and opposition parties said Italy should stay the course.
Calls for an Italian withdrawal last came in May when two soldiers were killed by an IED, and before that in September when six soldiers were killed in Kabul.
But Italy went on to commit to US President Barack Obama's surge against the Taliban and has been active in seeking political solutions to the conflict.
Italy, along with the rest of NATO, will begin to draw down numbers in 2011 as Afghan forces step up.
Last week Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledged his government's forces will take control of the country's security by 2014.
