Militants claim to have killed two hostages

Militants holding two Pakistani contractors hostage in Iraq said today they had killed the men, according to the Pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera.

A group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq announced in a videotape sent to Al-Jazeera on Monday that it had kidnapped two Pakistanis working for US forces and had sentenced them to death because their country was discussing sending troops to Iraq.

In a new video sent to the station today the group said it had carried out its threat. A newsreader said the video showed the corpses of the two men, but Al-Jazeera did not show the footage.

The kidnapped men were identified by Pakistan as engineer Raja Azad, 49, and driver Sajad Naeem, 29.