BAGHDAD, July 18 (AFP) - Hopes rose Sunday for the release of a Filipino and Egyptian hostage in Iraq but concern grew over the safety of the country's top officials after the justice minister narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is struggling to exercise authority over the country as his interim government prepares for its fourth week in control against a backdrop of daily car bombings and bloodshed.
In the latest hostage drama, the government in the Philippines has decided to bow to the demands of Islamic militants who kidnapped Angelo de la Cruz and withdraw its 51 police and soldiers from Iraq to save his life.
Manila said Sunday the tail-end of its symbolic military presence would leave the country within 24 hours, despite a personal request from Allawi not to succumb to threats.
Allawi warned this week that giving into the kidnappers would only encourage the phenomenon, which has accompanied a violent insurgency in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled by US-led forces in April.
Dozens of foreigners working here have been abducted. Some have been set free, some remain missing and others have been killed.
Despite the warning, the employer of an Egyptian hostage has also ended all its operations in Iraq, as demanded by the abductors of Sayed Mohammed Sayed al-Garbawi, who is apparently due to be set free on Sunday.
"The kidnappers called me a few minutes ago saying that they have decided to release him tomorrow morning," Faisal bin Ali al-Nuheit, whose company carries the same name, said on Saturday.
An official at Egypt's interests section in Iraq, however, said Sunday he had no fresh information on the whereabouts of Garbawi.
There was also no word on a kidnapped Bulgarian truck driver threatened with execution after his companion was beheaded earlier in the week.
Bulgaria, a new NATO member and close ally of the United States, has 470 troops in Iraq, has said that it was not in its power to influence an ultimatum from the kidnappers to kill a second Bulgarian hostage unless US troops freed Iraqi prisoners. It has also pledged never to bow to blackmail.
Adding to the hostilities that bred during the US-led occupation, two suicide car bombs ripped through Iraq on Saturday -- one targeting the motorcade of Iraqi Justice Minister Malek Dohan al-Hassan who escaped unscathed.
At least six people were killed and 36 injured.
The attack against the 83-year-old minister, a symbol of law and order in the country, was the latest involving a figure in authority and was reportedly claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked militant Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
Zarqawi is blamed by US and Iraqi officials of wanting to derail the new Iraqi government and plunge the country into further chaos.
A seasoned lawyer and politician, Hassan assumed a high profile earlier this month with the unveiling of a new national security law giving the government emergency powers in its battle against the 15-month-old insurgency.
He is also one of the key players in the process of trying deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and 11 of his lieutenants, after their first appearance in the dock on July 1.
Also in the line of fire are Iraqi police and national guardsmen.
The second car bomb on Saturday exploded outside a National Guard base in the restive town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad.
A police officer said another car bomb detonated on Sunday morning near a police checkpoint in the centre of Tikrit, Saddam's home town north of the Iraqi capital, injuring one policeman.
But US military in the city said the only incident they were aware of was the controlled detonation of a roadside bomb that caused no casualties.