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BAGHDAD, July 29 (AFP): Iraq's hostage crisis spiralled Thursday with the confirmed killing of two Pakistani captives, as the death toll climbed after a massive suicide bombing marked the interim government's first month in office.
"It is confirmed that the two Pakistani nationals have been executed," said Muhammad Iftikhar Anjum, charge d'affaires at the Pakistani embassy in Baghdad, naming those responsible as the "Al-Jish Islami in Iraq" group.
Sajid Naeem, 29, and Azad Hussein Khan, 49, two migrant workers, vanished six days ago. Their abductors accused them of working for US troops and demanded Pakistan rescind statements about possibly sending troops to Iraq.
"I now request that the dead bodies... may not be desecrated and handed over to us for onward dispatch to Pakistan for burial as per Islamic traditions," Anjum said.
In Pakistan, distraught relatives accused Islamabad of not doing enough to secure the release of their loved ones, held by the previous unheard of group.
The senior diplomat said his government had established "no direct communication" with the kidnappers, but had appealed for the men's release.
"I also tried to get my appeal across through my contacts as the two nationals had no political affiliations. But our appeal was unheard," he said.
"Those who have committed this crime have caused the greatest harm both to humanity and Islam," President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat said in a statement.
The two men's deaths are the first confirmed killings of foreign hostages since the headless body of a Bulgarian hostage was found floating in the Tigris river last week.
Georgy Lazov, 30, executed by a group loyal to Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda's suspected chief in Iraq, was flown home to Sofia overnight as his grief-stricken relatives waited at the airport.
An Islamist website has published a photograph of a bloodied head it claimed to belong to another Bulgarian also taken hostage earlier by Zarqawi's men.
Meanwhile: The family of one of two Pakistani migrant workers reportedly executed by Iraqi militants blamed President Pervez Musharraf Thursday, saying he could have saved their lives by ruling out sending troops to Iraq.
"If the government of Pakistan had tried, this tragedy could've been averted," said a grieving Abdul Razaq, whose brother-in-law Azad Hussein Khan was killed after five days in captivity, according to Al-Jazaeera television.
"The government of Pakistan should've categorically said it would not send troops to Iraq," he told AFP by phone from Rawalakot, a small village in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.
Al-Jazeera reported late Wednesday that Iraqi abductors killed Khan, 49, and Sajid Naeem, 29, both contractors from Rawalakot.
Meanwhile a report from Islamabad adds: Twin bomb blasts killed two Pakistani intelligence officials and a man suspected of planting the devices in the country's northwest, police said Thursday.
Two bombs exploded minutes apart late Wednesday in the garrison city of Kohat, some 165 kilometres (about 100 miles) west of Islamabad.
One blast killed the suspected bomber and the second killed the two intelligence officials while they were inspecting the site, Kohat police chief Abdul Majeed Marwat told AFP.
"Police have tightened the security in the area and investigation is underway," Marwat told AFP.
Marwat said no group had so far claimed responsibility for the attack.
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