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European troops die in Iraq blastFrom Alessio Vinci SPECIAL REPORT
• Interactive: Who's who in Iraq
• Interactive: Sectarian divide
• Timeline: Bloodiest days for civilians
ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Three Italian soldiers and one Romanian -- were killed when a bomb struck their military convoy in Iraq, according to the Italian military. The defence ministry said the four soldiers were killed on a road southwest of Nassiriya, the southern city where Italian forces in Iraq are based. A fourth Italian soldier was seriously wounded. A second vehicle among the convoy of four armored vehicles was destroyed in the blast just before 9 a.m on Thursday. Twenty-nine Italian troops have now been killed in Iraq while the Romanian soldier was the first from his country to die. The deaths mean 2,604 troops in the U.S.-led coalition have now been killed in the war. These deaths come during a political change in Italy and the withdrawing of Italian troops. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was defeated in national elections recently and victorious challenger Romano Prodi will be taking over soon. Italy is in the process of withdrawing troops from Iraq. Six hundred of its 3,200 troops are home. One thousand more are expected to return home by June. Berlusconi would have left behind a small contingent to protect civil engineers but Prodi says his coalition leaders believe all troops should return home by the end of the year. Both political leaders issued a reaction to the attack. Berlusconi said he was "deeply saddened" by the incident and Prodi said "this is a tragedy for all of Italy." 
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