Aid workers taken hostage in Baghdad

Two aid workers have been taken hostage by militants who stormed the Baghdad office of an Italian aid group.

Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29, worked for Un Ponte Per, a volunteer organisation supplying water and medicines to Falluja, Najaf and Baghdad.

About 20 armed men from an unidentified "Islamic group" stormed the building. An Iraqi colleague was also abducted as well as an Iraqi woman. "We had no sign of danger," a spokesman for Un Ponte Per said.

Ms Torretta is the head of the organisation's Iraqi operation and had been there since before the war. Ms Pari arrived in June 2003 and was working on a school project in Baghdad.