A decapitated body in an orange jumpsuit was discovered in the Tigris River north of Baghdad, the US military said today.

INSURGENTS yesterday killed an Iraqi provincial governor and two of his guards in a grenade attack on his convoy.

A MILITANT group holding two Bulgarian truck drivers hostage in Iraq said last night it had executed one of them and planned to kill the other in 24 hours.

Insurgents holding a Filipino truck driver hostage said today that he was still alive, but had been moved to the place where he was to be killed if the Philippines did not agree to remove their troops from Iraq, according to a video on the pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera.

Bulgaria and the Philippines insisted today they would not be cowed by terrorists after insurgents captured and threatened to kill their nationals in Iraq, the latest hostage takings in the country.

THE camera shows the suicide bomber warmly embracing a group of masked men. There are kisses on the cheek and a shot of him in the cab of a truck — his fingers resting on what appears to be a detonator.

A reporter with Time Magazine has received video footage of a suicide bomber chronicling his final hours right up to his deadly mission.

Up to 15 people were reported killed when explosions rocked a house in the turbulent Iraqi city of Fallujah today.

An Iraqi militant group has confirmed on a website that it has beheaded a captive US marine.

IRAQI militants freed three Turkish hostages yesterday, as another group of kidnappers claimed to have executed a US soldier captured nearly three months ago.

Iraqi militants shot dead an American soldier they have held hostage for nearly three months, saying he was killed because the US government did not change its policy in Iraq, Al-Jazeera television said today.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush's bid to bolster relations with key Middle East ally Turkey was greeted by 40,000 demonstrators chanting anti-American slogans.

The extremist movement responsible for beheading two foreign hostages, Al-Zarqawi, announced today it had kidnapped three Turkish workers and would kill them within 72 hours unless Turkish companies quit doing business with U.S. forces in Iraq, an Arab television station reported.

A GROUP led by al-Qaida-linked operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks across Iraq yesterday which killed 75 people.

A tape recording purportedly made by al-Qaida-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened to assassinate Iraq’s interim prime minister and said the fight against “infidels” would continue “until Islamic rule is back on earth”.

South Korea’s president said his nation was “wrenched with grief” over the beheading of a South Korean hostage in Iraq.

AN IRAQI militant group has beheaded a South Korean man it was holding hostage, the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera reported last night.

The United States tonight launched an airstrike in Fallujah on a safe house used by followers of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – the second strike against the terror network in three days.

An Iraqi militant group believed linked to al-Qaida beheaded a South Korean hostage after the Seoul government refused to bow to the terrorists’ demands to cancel plans to send its troops to Iraq.

An al-Qaida linked Iraqi militant group beheaded its South Korean hostage today and his body was found on a road between Baghdad and Fallujah.

A South Korean man captured in Iraq is still alive, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

The fate of a South Korean hostage held by Iraqi militants remained unknown early today after the deadline set by his captors for his country to withdraw troops from Iraq had passed.

MUSLIM militants in Iraq threatened to behead a South Korean hostage by last night unless his country scrapped plans to send 3,000 more troops — a demand rejected by Seoul.

South Korea said today it will go ahead with its plan to send troops to Iraq despite the abduction of a South Korean man and the televised broadcast of his desperate pleas to stay alive.

Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera has aired a video said to be from al-Qaida-linked militants showing a South Korean hostage begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw troops from Iraq.