US hostage 'killed' in Iraq

An Islamic insurgent group said yesterday it had killed a US hostage who, if the claim is confirmed, would be the first foreign captive killed in Iraq for four months and the first American in more than a year.

The reported killing came after a suicide bomber killed 30 people in an attack on a crowded bus in central Baghdad, the latest chapter in Iraq's bloody insurgency just a week before Iraqis vote in parliamentary elections.

A statement posted on a website often used by insurgents said the Islamic Army in Iraq killed the security consultant, identified as Ronald Schulz, because the US government had not met its demands, which included freeing all Iraqi prisoners.

"War criminal (US President George W.) Bush continues with his arrogance and no one has any value unless they serve his criminal interests, therefore the American security adviser pig at the Housing Ministry has been killed," the statement said.

The statement's authenticity could not be verified and no pictures or video accompanied it.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "I don't have any confirmation or any additional information to provide on that matter."

The US embassy in Baghdad said it had no official confirmation of the report.

If true, Mr Schulz, a 40-year-old electrician who had been working in Iraq before his kidnap on Tuesday, would be the first foreign hostage killed in Iraq since late July, when two Algerians were executed by their captors.

The last American hostage to die was Jack Hensley, in September 2004.

The reported killing follows a spate of foreign hostage-taking in Baghdad condemned by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and came as Iraqi security forces were braced for a spike in violence ahead of the election.

The bombing on the Baghdad bus took the death toll from suicide attacks in the Iraqi capital to 66 in just three days, after a relative lull in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, suicide bombers breached security at Baghdad's police academy and killed 36 police officers and cadets. Police said yesterday's bomber boarded the bus as it was about to leave a bus station for the southern Shi'ite city of Nassiriya and blew himself up. In August, the same bus station was hit by three car bombs.

Growing frustration over the violence and little improvement in the quality of life for Iraqis loom as the main threats to the ruling United Iraqi Alliance in next Thursday's election.

The Alliance, tacitly backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric, includes Iraq's two most powerful religious Shi'ite parties.

It swept to power with more than half the seats in parliament in January's interim polls on hopes, largely unrealised, that a democratically elected government would usher in a semblance of stability and revive a crumbling economy.

"This government has been a loser throughout the year. It didn't do anything for the people. Instead things are even worse now," said Inas, a freelance translator in Baghdad.

The Americans, who announced the deaths of two more US Marines - one in Baghdad and one in Ramadi - said they are tightening security ahead of the vote.

"We are not complacent. The insurgency wants to disrupt the democratic process," Major General Rick Lynch, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq, said.

In Washington, defence officials said the US military has plans to cancel the deployment of two Army brigades to Iraq in what could be the start of a reduction of US forces there.

But small groups from two brigades, which each include about 3,500 troops and hundreds of supporting soldiers, could be sent to help train Iraqi security forces, according to the officials, who asked not to be identified.

An Iraqi militant group calling itself Swords of Truth is holding four Western Christian aid workers and has said it will kill them if Iraqi prisoners are not freed by tomorrow, Al Jazeera television reported.