Bodies 'of US Iraq workers' found

Foreigners are reported missing or captured every day

Four mutilated bodies have been found west of Baghdad, according to a US state department official.

The bodies have not been identified but there is speculation that they could be US contractors missing since an ambush on their fuel convoy last week.

Foreign nationals are being urged to leave Iraq amid growing insecurity and a wave of kidnappings of civilians.

A spokesman for the US-led coalition, Dan Senor, said 40 hostages from 12 countries were now being held in Iraq.

'Location clue'

Two US soldiers and seven civilian employees of a subsidiary of the US oil giant Halliburton have not been seen since the attack on their convoy west of Baghdad on Friday.

US officials said the families of the missing Kellogg, Brown and Root workers had been told of the find.

While we are not yet certain of the identification of these brave individuals... we at Halliburton are saddened to learn of these deaths and are working with the authorities so the families can begin the grieving and healing process Halliburton statement Timeline: Hostages in Iraq

"We do know that four bodies have been found but we don't have any confirmation of the identities," a state department official told Reuters.

"We have been in contact with the families of the seven missing Americans."

Another US state department official, speaking to the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity, said that the families had been notified of the possibility that the remains may belong to some of their relatives because of the close proximity of the grave to the ambush site.

US television stations NBC and ABC said the remains were discovered near a junction of Highways One and 10 between Abu Ghraib and Falluja, close to the scene of the attack.

Mutilation

The unnamed official added that the poor condition of the remains made it "hard to say right now" if they belonged to any of the missing Americans.

NBC reported that the members of the US-led coalition had been led to the grave site by an Iraqi and that all of the corpses had been "mutilated beyond recognition".

A number of countries have issued formal warnings telling their citizens to leave

Halliburton issued a statement in response to the discovery.

"While we are not yet certain of the identification of these brave individuals, and no matter who they are, we at Halliburton are saddened to learn of these deaths and are working with the authorities so the families can begin the grieving and healing process," it read.

One of the men in the ambushed convoy, 43-year-old lorry driver Thomas Hamill, appeared in video footage aired on an Arabic TV station following the attack.

His captors threatened to kill him if the US siege of Falluja was not lifted, but there has been no word on his fate since 11 April and no information at all about the other missing members of the convoy.

Fresh abductions

In the latest example of foreign hostage-taking in Iraq, the French foreign ministry confirmed on Tuesday that a French journalist had been taken captive.

Earlier, al-Jazeera television showed a video of four Italian men, surrounded by armed men.

Italian officials said four Italian employees of a private US security agency, DTS Security, were missing.

A number of other foreigners have been taken hostage or reported missing in Iraq, including three Japanese citizens abducted last Thursday whose fate remains unknown.

France has followed Germany in issuing a formal warning urging its citizens to leave, calling the kidnappings "unacceptable".

The UK foreign office said it continued to advise against all but the most essential travel to Iraq.

Russia's biggest contractor in Iraq, Tekhpromexport, is pulling its 370 staff out of Iraq amid security concerns.