Iraqi kidnappers threaten to kill US hostage

10.00am UPDATE

DUBAI - Iraqi kidnappers said in a tape aired on an Arabic television station on Saturday they would kill and maim a US hostage they had seized unless American forces lifted the siege of Falluja.

"Up to now your prisoner is being dealt with in the tolerant manner specified by Islamic law. Our one request is to break the siege of the city of the mosques (Falluja) during the 12 hours from six o'clock on Saturday evening," a voice on a tape shown on Qatar-based Al Jazeera said.

"If not, he will be dealt with worse than those who were killed and burned in Falluja," the voice added in the tape, which also showed the man in front of an Iraqi flag.

Britain's Sky News earlier on Saturday aired film from Australia's ABC showing the US hostage saying he had been seized after a convoy was attacked. Speaking with a southern US accent, he gave his name as Thomas Hamill.

Iraq has seen an escalation in fighting including a spate of hostage-taking following the mutilation of four US contractors killed after an ambush in Falluja in late March.

Gruesome footage of the men, shown on US television, prompted an ongoing American siege of the town west of Baghdad.

There were indications on Saturday that rebels were willing to agree to ceasefire talks if US Marines withdrew to outside the city. A delegation representing Iraq's US-backed Governing Council and other Sunni leaders managed to visit Falluja for talks with religious and anti-US leaders.

Al Jazeera said the man also identified himself as Thomas Hamill in the tape it received from the group, whose name was given as "the Mujahideen Group - Kidnappings".

Hamill said he worked for a private company which had dealings with the US-led coalition in Iraq.

Al Jazeera said Hamill, who looked to be in good condition, said he was the only survivor of an ambush on his convoy.

The Pentagon had said on Friday several civilian contractors and two US soldiers were missing after a military fuel convoy was ambushed on the main highway west of Baghdad.

Civilians are widely employed by the US military in Iraq, as truck drivers and security guards, among other tasks.

Earlier on Saturday, a group calling itself the "Brigades of the Hero Martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin" said they were holding 30 foreign hostages and threatened to decapitate them unless US forces lifted their blockade of the Iraqi town of Falluja.

"We have Japanese, Bulgarian, Israeli, American, Spanish and Korean hostages," a masked gunman said in an footage aired by Arab TV station, Al Arabiya. The footage showed no hostages.

An Iraqi group which kidnapped three Japanese hostages said in another statement sent to Al Jazeera on Saturday that it would release them within 24 hours, abandoning a threat to kill them.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq