An Islamist group which had threatened to kill an Italian journalist held hostage in Iraq claims she will be released within the next few days, according to a website statement.
Giuliana Sgrena, a 56-year-old Middle East correspondent for the Italian newspaper Manifesto Daily, was abducted last Friday after visiting a Baghdad mosque.
The group had threatened to kill her unless the Italian government announced a pullout of its 3,000 troops by late today.
Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 27 people have been killed in two suicide car bomb attacks.
At least 15 people were killed and 17 others wounded in an explosion outside a police station in the town of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.
Another 12 were killed and four were wounded in a blast at a hospital in the northern city of Mosul.
Responsibility for the second attack has been claimed by a group thought to be the al-Qaeda wing in Iraq.
The claim was made on an Islamist website by the group led by the Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
