Aryan

Group threatens to kill Pakistan hostages

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Insurgents threatened to kill three Pakistani hostages if President Gen. Pervez Musharraf did not close his country's embassy in Iraq, according to video broadcast Saturday on Arab television.

The videotape showed three hostages flanked by a group of masked, armed men. The anchor for the Al-Arabiya television network read the insurgents' demand that the Pakistani president shut the embassy.

The news of the previously unreported kidnapping of the hostages came a day after a Pakistani man previously held captive here and later freed returned home.

It was not immediately clear which group had taken the new hostages.