Iraqi gunmen threaten to kill US and Pakistani hostages

1.00pm

DUBAI - Militants have kidnapped a US Marine and a Pakistani driver in Iraq and are threatening to behead them unless Iraqi prisoners are freed, Arab television reported on Sunday.

The kidnappings, apparently carried out by two different groups, are the latest targeting foreigners in Iraq in the violent run-up to June 30, when an interim Iraqi government is set to formally take over from the US-led occupation authorities.

Al Jazeera television said a group calling itself the Islamic Response Movement, the security wing of the "1920 Revolution Brigades", had kidnapped a US Marine after luring him from a US base.

Sunday's brief video showed a blindfolded man dressed in camouflage sitting in a chair with a hand holding a sword above his head. A Marine Corps identity card named him as Wassef Ali Hassoun and Jazeera said he was of Pakistani origin. Other official documents also displayed his name.

There was no immediate comment from the US military in Baghdad. Jazeera said the group threatened to behead Hassoun if their demands were not met but did not set a deadline.

Earlier, Al Arabiya television broadcast a video tape from an unidentified group of gunmen in Iraq saying they had captured a Pakistani man carrying an identity card for US contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root, which works with the US military.

They also threatened to behead him unless Iraqi prisoners are released. They set a deadline of three days.

It was not immediately clear if both groups were linked to Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad, a group led by suspected al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi which has carried out previous kidnappings and beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq.

"This man was taken after an attack on a US base in Balad," said a masked gunmen on the tape Arabiya aired.

"You must release our prisoners held near the US base in Balad, in Dujail, in Yethrib, in Samarra and near Abu Ghraib. You have three days from the date of this recording and after that we will behead him. We have warned you."

Balad, Dujail, Yethrib and Samarra are towns north of Baghdad. Abu Ghraib is a Baghdad jail that was the scene of much-publicised abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US forces.

The tape on Al Arabiya showed three men, their faces covered by chequered Arab headdresses, standing behind the crouching man.

The recording also showed the Pakistani hostage urging President Pervez Musharraf -- a key ally in the US war on terror -- to shut down Pakistan's embassy in Iraq. His comments were translated into Arabic by Al Arabiya.

On Saturday, Al Jazeera aired a video tape allegedly from Zarqawi's group in which in which it said it had kidnapped three Turks and threatened to decapitate them within 72 hours unless Turkish companies quit Iraq.

Zarqawi's group also said it had beheaded South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il last week after Seoul rejected demands to pull military medics and engineers out of Iraq and drop plans to send more troops.

The group also decapitated US contractor Nicholas Berg in Iraq last month.

US officials say Zarqawi is their top foe and "number one target" in Iraq. His group has claimed many suicide bombings and assassinations of Iraqi officials in recent months.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq