Turkish drivers pull out of Iraq

The Turkish hostage worked for a catering firm

Turkish truck drivers have called an immediate halt to deliveries to Iraq after video footage apparently showed the killing of a Turkish hostage.

The video, which appeared on the internet on Monday, showed masked men shoot a man in the head three times.

The man has been identified as Murat Yuce, who worked for Turkish catering company Bilintur.

The truckers' decision to pull out of Iraq is seen as an attempt to save two Turkish truck drivers held hostage.

The two, Abdurrahman Demir and Said Unurlu, are being held by men claiming to be from the same militant group which apparently killed Mr Yuce. Militants appeared in a video on Saturday threatening to kill them unless their employers pulled out of Iraq.

The Tawid and Jihad group is linked to suspected al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is accused of a string suicide bombings in Iraq.

Deliveries halted

In the video released on Monday, a hostage identifying himself as Mr Yuce reads out a statement calling on Turkish firms to leave Iraq.

FOREIGN HOSTAGES KILLED 14 April: Fabrizio Quattrocchi, 36, Italian security guard is shot dead 11 May: Nick Berg, 26, US businessman is beheaded 22 June: Kim Sun-il, 33, South Korean translator is beheaded 29 June: Keith Maupin, 20, US soldier is reportedly killed (not confirmed) 14 July: Georgi Lazov, 30, Bulgarian truck driver is beheaded 29 July: Pakistanis Azad Hussein Khan and Sajjad Naeem's dead bodies are shown on video 2 August: Turkish man Murat Yuce shown on video being shot dead

The next shot shows the leader of the three masked men shoot him in the head.

Bilintur said Mr Yuce and an unnamed colleague had been missing for a few days. There was no word on the second man.

Following the release of the video, the Istanbul-based International Transporters' Association said it had stopped all deliveries into Iraq.

The firm employing the two missing truck drivers had already indicated it would give in to the kidnappers' demands.

Between 200 and 300 trucks have been crossing into Iraq from southern Turkey every day, taking food, fuel and other supplies to US troops.