Militants 'lift hostage deadline'

A video showed a gun being pointed at one of the Indian hostages

Militants threatening to kill seven foreign truck drivers in Iraq have lifted a talks deadline, the hostages' Kuwaiti employer says.

The kidnappers had threatened to kill one of the hostages by 1900 (1500 GMT) on Friday if the company did not meet a demand to leave Iraq.

The three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian were seized 10 days ago.

A video on Thursday showed a masked kidnapper pointing a gun at the head of one of the hostages.

Militants have stepped up a campaign of hostage-taking in Iraq to try to force foreign troops and firms to leave.

The latest threats come after a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq killed two Pakistanis it was holding - the first Muslim hostages in Iraq to be executed by their captors.

Talks

Rana Abu-Zaineh of the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company told BBC News Online that the captors had informed them about lifting the deadline.

I appeal to the people who have abducted my son to please release him as he is just a poor man Ram Murti Bain, father of hostage

"The deadline is open now," she said

Ms Rana said a Baghdad-based "intermediary" appointed by the firm would meet the kidnappers on Saturday for further negotiations.

She said a tribal leader in the flashpoint Iraqi city of Falluja was also talking to the kidnappers to try to secure the hostages' release.

Meanwhile, another Iraqi militant group has said it is holding four Jordanians and has called on the people of Jordan to force their government to end its support for the new government in Baghdad.

The authorities in Jordan say they are investigating the reports which were broadcast on Arab television stations.

It is being reported by the AFP news agency that two Syrian truck drivers were taken hostage along with the Jordanians.

Angry villagers

In the home village of Indian hostage Antaryami Bain in the Una area of northern Himachal Pradesh state, angry residents stopped traffic - demanding the government do more.

"I appeal to the people who have abducted my son to please release him as he is just a poor man," the hostage's father Ram Murti Bains told reporters.

As tension mounted in the area, police took a group of foreign tourists struck in a traffic jam caused by the protest to a nearby temple for safety.

"There are 32 foreigners and they will be transported out safely as soon as the traffic jam is cleared," a senior district official told the BBC.

The seven truck drivers are being held by a little-known group calling itself the "black banners" brigade of the "Islamic Secret Army".

The Indian foreign ministry has repeated a warning against travelling to Iraq. Some three million Indians are said to be working in the Gulf region and an estimated 100,000 in Iraq.