"You have to distinguish between terrorism and resistance," said Torretta

ROME, October 2 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Iraqi people have every right to resist the US-led occupation forces until liberating their homeland, one of two Italian hostages freed in Iraq has said.

"I said it before the kidnapping and I repeat it today," Reuters quoted Simona Torretta as telling Corriere della Sera newspaper in an interview published on Friday, October 1.

"You have to distinguish between terrorism and resistance. The guerrilla war is justified, but I am against the kidnapping of civilians."

She also called on her government to withdraw Italian troops sent to Iraq to support Washington.

Torretta and her colleague Simona Pari, both aid workers,  were seized, along with two Iraqis, on September 7 from the offices of their aid organization "A Bridge to Baghdad" in the Iraqi capital.

Their abductors had demanded the withdrawal of the Italian troops from Iraq.

The two Italian women were released on Tuesday, September 28, and handed over to the Italian charge d'affaires in Baghdad.

"Puppet Govt.”

Torretta further hit out at the interim Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi, saying it is a "puppet government in the hands of the Americans".

She said the Iraqi general elections, scheduled for January, would have no legitimacy.

"During my days in detention I came to the conclusion it will take decades to put Iraq back on its feet," the aid worker told the Italian paper.

Torretta had no idea about whether the Italian government paid one million dollars in ransom to buy their freedom.

"If a ransom was paid, then I am very sorry. But I know nothing about it. I believe that [the captors] were a very political, religious group and that in the end they were convinced that we were not enemies."

Comeback

The freed Italian hostage wished to return back to Iraq, but only after the withdrawal of the US-led occupation forces.

"I've got to wait until the end of the US occupation," Torretta said.

She and her colleague Pari said they had been well-treated during their three-week detention.

"I would do it all over again with all the consequences that carry even though I'm sorry for all the suffering my mother went through and didn't deserve," Torretta had said in a previous interview.

The two Italians used to work for a NGO widely known for its long-standing opposition to Western policy towards Iraq.

The Bridge to Baghdad organization campaigned vigorously against the crippling UN sanctions slapped against Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait right up to last year.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, it ran health care, education and water treatment projects in a bid to alleviate the impact of the sanctions on the Iraqi people.

The organization's operations are not limited to Iraq -- it has also worked in Kosovo and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.