Militants vow to kill Bulgarian hostages in Iraq

1.00pm - By ALISTAIR LYON

BAGHDAD - Militants in Iraq threatened on Thursday to kill two Bulgarian hostages within 24 hours unless US-led forces freed prisoners, stepping up pressure on Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's new interim government.

The Arabic satellite television station Al Jazeera said the tape was from the Tawhid and Jihad group headed by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been accused by Washington of links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

The tape showed two men, identified as Bulgarians, sitting in front of masked captors, two of them wielding automatic weapons while a third read a statement.

"The group said the Bulgarian government bore responsibility over the safety of its citizens because it has sent troops to Iraq," said Al Jazeera.

No immediate comment was available from Bulgarian officials, and it was not clear whether the captive Bulgarians were military personnel or civilians.

Bulgaria has been an ally of the United States over Iraq, contributing around 470 troops to US-led forces.

The US military has branded Zarqawi -- who has claimed responsibility for the beheadings of an American and a South Korean -- as its number one target in Iraq, blaming him for much of the insurgency racking the country.

The latest kidnappings intensified pressure on Allawi's interim government, coming only a day after another group of militants threatened to kill a Filipino hostage unless Manila withdrew its troops from Iraq.

The interim government is heavily dependent on the presence of around 160,000 US-led foreign troops for security, while it builds up its fledgling forces.

Kidnappers have seized dozens of foreigners since April to press demands for foreign troops to leave Iraq, to deter foreigners from working with US forces or to extract ransoms.

Many hostages have been freed, but at least three have been killed.

Lebanese-born US Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun, reported at one stage to have been beheaded by militants after going missing in Iraq, was safe at the US embassy in Beirut, officials said.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the 24-year-old corporal, who disappeared from his unit on June 21, had been picked up in Beirut after making contact.

"We were able to go get him this morning," Boucher told reporters in Washington. Other officials said Hassoun seemed to be in good health, but details about him were sketchy.

In another twist to the story, relatives of Hassoun fought a gunbattle with a family who taunted them as US agents in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, witnesses said.

At least two people were killed and several were wounded in the incident, said the witnesses.

In the latest violence in Iraq, guerrillas killed five US soldiers and two Iraqi guards in a mortar attack on National Guard headquarters in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

A US Army Apache attack helicopter fired Hellfire missiles at a nearby building after the strike, killing four insurgents, the US military said.

The deaths in Samarra, a mainly Sunni Muslim town some 100km north of Baghdad, brought to more than 650 the US combat death toll in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March last year to topple Saddam Hussein.

The guerrilla attack occurred a day after the interim government announced a new security law giving itself tougher powers to combat guerrilla attacks.

Outside Samarra, insurgents opened fire on a convoy of oil tanker trucks, killing two drivers, at least one of whom was Turkish, witnesses said.

In Baghdad, police said an official of Saddam's ousted Baath party was killed when a bomb hidden in his car exploded outside a rope factory he owned in the south of the city. Baathists have frequently been murdered in revenge attacks.

In the northern city of Mosul, one policeman was killed and seven wounded when a roadside bomb exploded at a roundabout. Another was shot dead when insurgents fired at a police station, the US military said. Four suspected insurgents were detained.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq