ROME (Reuters) — Ransom rumours in Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing new, but Italy’s public admission of a “prisoner swap” with the Taliban sets a dangerous precedent which raises the stakes for Western hostages, analysts say.The government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Monday’s release of kidnapped newspaper reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo came after Kabul freed five Taliban guerrillas on Rome’s behalf.

Security analysts and advocates of press freedom frowned on the swap but also roundly condemned the admission, believed to be the first of its kind by a Western government in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. They said it made concessions to kidnappers a matter of state policy for the first time and heightened the risk to reporters around the world. The International Federation of Journalists told Reuters it has started warning reporters to steer clear of Afghan war zones because of the “new risks” stemming from the Italian episode.

“We know that in the past there have been negotiations and deals have been done to secure people’s release. This is the first time that is has been so publicly acknowledged,” the Brussels-based IFJ’s General Secretary Aiden White told Reuters.

“That’s extremely worrying because that then makes it look like we’re beginning to acknowledge this is a valid and proper way to respond to the crisis, which it is not.”

The Asia program coordinator at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said: “It’s hard to believe that other people won’t see this as something that worked. “We wouldn’t discourage a newspaper or a family from negotiating with kidnappers and meeting their demands. We become more wary when a government starts setting those agendas,” Bob Dietz said.

The United States and Britain criticised the swap. A senior US official said it endangered NATO troops by putting back on the battlefield “dangerous Taliban operatives”, one of whom has reportedly said he would take up arms again.

But it would be hard to argue that Italy’s ten-month-old centre-left government has broken precedent by negotiating with foreign kidnappers, including those it holds to be “terrorists”.

The country has in the past prided itself on its ability to strike quiet deals that allowed for the release of hostages in Iraq and Afghanistan, often amid rumours of big ransom payments.

“I think the Italian view, not just of this government, of trying to save the person’s life first and foremost is a respectable one,” Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema said.

Italy is not alone in Europe. Germany is widely reported to have paid multi-million-dollar ransoms, including for the 2005 release of archaeologist Susanne Osthoff in Iraq. The government declined to comment on whether it had bought her freedom. Elsewhere, Western security sources say an al Qaeda-linked group called the GSPC bought arms and vehicles with German ransom money paid for the release of tourists in the Sahara in 2003.

“In reality, it’s happened so many times now. And really, it (paying ransom) is more or less acceptable,” Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. But there are no known cases of a prisoner swap that traded a journalist for jailed enemy combatants. Security analysts were split over whether it helped the Taliban more than a ransom. Alani argued there was no practical difference since the Taliban freed in return for the Italian reporter, including local commanders and spokesmen, were not very senior.

But Nick Pratt, a former CIA official, said swapping hostages was clearly worse — and raised the risks to Western journalists and other civilians such as aid workers. “I think the money is a lesser event,” said Pratt, at the Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. “I think this raises the bar.”

Still, the Taliban may find Italy’s groundbreaking hostage swap a tough act to follow, said Colonel Christopher Langton at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Although they freed the Italian reporter, they beheaded his driver and his translator’s whereabouts are still unknown. “They have not kept their side of the deal and they have killed an innocent Afghan, which is definitely against the culture of Afghanistan,” Langton said.