Insurgents Threaten to Kill Pakistani
1 minute ago

By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents threatened Sunday to behead a Pakistani hostage if American forces do not release some prisoners being held at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq (news - web sites) within the next three days.

In a declaration broadcast by the Arab language television station Al-Arabiya, three masked gunmen said the countdown began with the airing of the tape.

The hostage, who appeared and spoke on the tape, gave his name as Amjad and displayed an identification card issued by the U.S. firm Kellogg, Brown & Root, appeared on the tape released Sunday. KBR is a subsidiary of Halliburton, the largest contractor in Iraq.

"I'm also Muslim, but despite this they didn't release me," he said. "They are going to cut the head of any person regardless of whether he is a Muslim or not."

The report of the kidnapping came a day after followers of militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they had kidnapped three Turkish workers and threatened to behead them on Tuesday unless Turkish companies working with the U.S.-led occupation leave Iraq.

In Sunday's video, the masked men did not say whether they were affiliated with any group.

"Three days after the airing of this picture, we will cut off his head," said a stocky militant in the center of the picture whose face was cloaked by a red kefiyeh.

The men demanded that prisoners be released from detention centers in several specific areas, including Abu Ghraib, the center of a scandal involving the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers.

The hostage urged Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to close the Pakistani Emba**y in Iraq and to ban all Pakistanis from coming to Iraq. He appealed to his countrymen not to come to work in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi's movement has beheaded two previous hostages — American businessman Nicholas Berg last month and South Korean worker Kim Sun-Il last week.