BAGHDAD, July 16 (AFP) - Several Philippine troops left Iraq Friday to save the life of a Filipino hostage and Thai soldiers joined the exodus as their mission winds up, despite a request to extend.
Underlining the persistency of a rebellion that Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has vowed to defeat, a policeman was shot dead in the northern city of Kirkuk while nearby insurgents fired mortar rounds at an already damaged oil pipeline but missed their target.
"The path ahead is long and there are a lot of difficulties and challenges," Allawi told a press conference on Thursday. "But we are determined with the help of god to win this challenge."
"We are serious about facing these deviants and providing security and essential needs for the Iraqi people," Allawi added, before unveiling plans for a new intelligence-gathering unit that will form part of a hard-line drive to crack down on criminal gangs, rebels and foreign terror groups in the country.
The General Security Directorate (GSD) will aim to prevent the deadly attacks that have plagued Iraq, such as two car bombings, one outside the government's main compound in Baghdad and another targeting a police station west of the capital, in as many days that left at least 20 dead and more than 60 wounded.
Final touches are also being put to an amnesty for those who rebelled against the US-led coalition but are willing to lay down their arms, which will be announced soon, the prime minister said.
Meanwhile, the hostage crisis that has tormented Iraq since April refused to disappear as relatives and friends of one of the latest foreign nationals to go missing -- a Filipino -- waited anxiously for news.
In response to a demand by the kidnappers to leave Iraq, the Philippines started withdrawing its handful of troops despite a request from Allawi to stay, and despite sharp rebukes from its allies the United States and Australia.
Manila said 10 soldiers left their base for neighboring Kuwait at about 0500 GMT Friday. The force's commander, Brigadier-General Jovito Palparan, was to follow at around 1300 GMT.
A day earlier the kidnappers of truck driver Angelo de la Cruz, 46, gave the Philippines until the end of the month to complete the pull-out or the hostage would be beheaded.
The announcement deprives Washington of another ally in Iraq. Spain and several Latin American countries pulled their troops after the deadly Madrid train bombings in March.
Thailand also announced Friday it has started the withdrawal of its 451 troops from the country at the end of their deployment, ignoring an appeal by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to delay the pull-out beyond the end of September.
Adding to the troubles, police General Salem Haj Issa said police dragged a second corpse dressed in an orange jumpsuit this time with his throat slit from the Tigris River near to Mosul, 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of Baghdad.
"The body was handed over to the Americans," he said, noting that it ressembled a Westerner.
Joseph Piek, US army spokesman for the area, denied any knowledge of the discovery.
"We have checked with all our units and the police and nobody has any information on this," said the spokesman in an email statement.
A handful of foreigners taken hostage in Iraq were dressed in orange outfits similar to those worn by prisoners at a US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and then slain by their captors.
The apparent finding followed the retrieval -- confirmed by the US military and Iraqi police -- from the same river on Wednesday evening of a headless corpse also wearing an orange outfit who has yet to be identified.
In the latest hostage drama to hit Iraq, the captors of a Bulgarian truck driver announced on Tuesday that he had been beheaded.
The Bulgarian government confirmed the death of a man. He is believed to be Georgy Lazov, 30, but his identity has not been confirmed.
The kidnappers had threatened to kill another Bulgarian hostage by Wednesday evening unless US forces released within 24 hours Iraqi prisoners they are holding, Al-Jazeera satellite television said. His fate is unknown.
In addition, the employer of a kidnapped Egyptian trucker, Sayed Mohammed Sayed al-Garbawi, has agreed to leave the country.
In simmering unrest, an explosion near a US army convoy rocked central Baghdad but it was not immediately clear if it caused any casualties, a US military spokesman said.
And 13 people were wounded in clashes between insurgents and US soldiers in the flashpoint western region of Fallujah, hospital and police sources said.