Deadline for hostages in Iraq

The kidnappers of two German hostages held in Iraq said they would kill their captives within 72 hours unless Germany ended cooperation with Iraq and closed its Baghdad embassy, Al Jazeera television said yesterday. A new tape of the hostages showed...

The kidnappers of two German hostages held in Iraq said they would kill their captives within 72 hours unless Germany ended cooperation with Iraq and closed its Baghdad embassy, Al Jazeera television said yesterday.

A new tape of the hostages showed them next to masked individuals who pointed automatic rifles at them. It was dated January 29.

The hostage takers were from the Ansar al-Tawhid Wa-Sunna militant group, Jazeera said, adding that the group also demanded that all German companies leave Iraq.

The two engineers, identified in German media reports as Rene Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, were abducted on January 24 outside their workplace in the Iraqi industrial town of Baiji, 180 kilometres north of Baghdad.

They appeared in a video on Friday urging their government to help secure their release and at the time German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to do all she could to free them.

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