Al Jazeera showed video of Italian hostages

Italy's newspapers express profound shock at the killing of an Italian hostage, one of dozens of foreigners held by Iraqi insurgents.

"Horror in Iraq, an Italian hostage is killed," headlines the country's biggest selling daily, Il Corriere della Sera.

It shows a large photo of the victim, 36-year-old Fabrizio Quattrocchi. The picture is a video still, taken from the abductors' own tape of their hostages.

"A barbaric gesture that leaves us in dismay," says Rome-based Il Messaggero.

La Repubblica says Italy fears now for the lives of the other hostages, citing a report by al-Jazeera television that the kidnappers threatened to kill them "one by one if their demands were not taken into account".

'Full-scale war'

In its report, La Repubblica says the abductors accused Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of not "caring about the lives of his fellow citizens and preferring to satisfy his masters at the White House".

And in an editorial the newspaper turns its fire on both the hostage takers and Mr Berlusconi.

"Italy's 'small war' too, as was sadly to be expected, has become a tragedy," La Repubblica says in an editorial.

We are fully involved in a full-scale war, thanks to an ideological plan by our prime minister La Repubblica

"A democracy does not accept lessons from terrorism, it has within itself the tools and checks to judge itself, confirm its values and correct its mistakes."

"The politics of a legitimate government of a democratic state cannot be under external blackmail and cannot be in the hands of the violent will of a guerrilla group."

"We are fully involved in a full-scale war, even though we have arrived when the war was officially over, thanks to an ideological plan by our prime minister and his calculation of transforming himself into Bush's privileged partner."

Call for 'grown-up' response

While horrified by the killing, there was little in the way of criticism of Italian policy in Iraq from centrist daily La Stampa or centre-right Il Messaggero.

"Staying in Iraq now entails a very high risk operation," La Stampa writes in an editorial.

This serves as an example and a punishment against the 'invaders' Il Messaggero

"It forces dramatic decisions upon us, and confers a depth of meaning on the choice not to withdraw in haste from the Iraqi mission which is going to force Italian politics to show a grown-up behaviour, both from the ruling coalition and the opposition."

Rome's Il Messaggero says the killing notched the war up a level, and made Italy a country "ever more the target of extremist terrorism".

"In the devastating logic of gangs operating in a ruined situation which seems to have got out of control, this serves as an example and a punishment against the 'invaders'," it adds.

'Green Brigade of the Prophet'

Il Corriere della Sera takes time to examine the nature of the little-known group that carried out the killing.

"The Green Brigade of the Prophet, which has claimed responsibility for abducting the four Italians and killing one of them, is one of the groups which adhere to the Wahhabi Sunni ideology of Al-Qa'idah.

The decision to execute an Italian hostage seems like a reaction to the intervention by Iran Il Corriere della Sera

It says the group considers it legitimate to kill not only Christian "crusaders" and Jewish "Zionists", but even Muslim Shi'a "heretics".

"The sudden decision to execute an Italian hostage and the threat to do the same to the other three if Italy does not pull out of Iraq seems like a direct reaction to the start of the intervention by Iran, the country of the Shi'a, and therefore an excellent enemy."

Families' grief and anxiety

All the newspapers report on the anguish of the hostages' families.

Some family members were taking part in a live television programme late on Wednesday when news of the execution broke, but it was more than two hours before the identity of the victim became known.

La Repubblica says relatives fought to control their emotions during the programme.

La Stampa says Mr Berlusconi has dispatched his diplomatic adviser Gianni Castellaneta to Iraq to co-ordinate efforts to have the other hostages released.

It quotes centre-left opposition leader Francesco Rutelli calling for political unity in a time of crisis for Italy.

Il Messaggero quotes Foreign Minister Franco Frattini as saying "it will be very difficult to get the other hostages released. The kidnappers are bandits who represent no-one."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.