Threat to kill Pak hostages

An armed group in Iraq says it has seized two Pakistanis and an Iraqi driver employed by a Kuwaiti company, and has decided to execute them, reports the Arabic news channel Aljazeera.

A group calling itself "The Islamic Army in Iraq" said it had "investigated"  the two Pakistanis- a technician working for Kuwait's al-Tamimi group and a truck driver- and decided to execute them, in a videotape recieved by Aljazeera.

The captors said the killings would be carried out based on "conclusive evidence" and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's announcement that Islamabad may deploy troops to Iraq, the article said.  

The Iraqi, a truck driver who was delivering food supplies to US troops. is still being interrogated, Aljazeera quoted the captors as saying. The outfit also threatened al-Tamimi's employees, saying they would share a similar destiny to that of the Pakistanis' unless they withdrew from Iraq, the article said.

Part of the video broadcast showed the three men's identity cards and photograph of them standing with Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a former senior US military official in Iraq,  Aljazeera said.