DUBAI, July 29 (AFP) - An Islamist group in Iraq said on Thursday it was holding four Jordanians and called on the people of the kingdom to pressure their government to end its support for the US-led coalition, in a videotape aired by Dubai Television.
"We have taken as guests four of our brethren from Jordan in order to put pressure on their government and we don`t want to turn from being hosts into other things," said a statement from the group calling itself "Death Squad of Mujahedeen of Iraq".
The four captives were shown on the tape, visibly nervous and sweating as they held up their passports and identity cards.
"We urge our people in Jordan to exert pressure by all means in order to put an end to the Jordanian government`s support for the US occupation forces," the statement said.
In Amman, the brother of one of the hostages said he had spoken by phone to one of the kidnappers.
Walid Khleifat, from Ramtha in northern Jordan, said he recognised his brother among the four men on the clip broadcast by Dubai TV.
"I then telephoned my brother on his mobile phone and came upon a man who said he was one of the kidnappers who was holding my brother as hostage," Khleifat told the daily newspaper Al-Dustour.
Jordanian authorities said they had no immediate confirmation of four more men being seized, following Monday`s kidnapping of two Jordanian truck drivers whose firm said it was going to end its operations in Iraq in order to save the two men`s lives.
"Your brothers in Iraq have rolled up their sleeves and vowed before God and His prophet that any country which helps the aggressor America in its aggression on Muslims all over Iraq and the world will have its interests, private and public, targeted by the mujahedeen and treated like American targets," the hostage-takers vowed.
The group said it would "see what these people (of Jordan and other countries neighbouring Iraq) and their rulers will do and we`re waiting for a swift answer or we`ll make the right move as Islamic sharia would say."
Only two of the hostages` names were clear enough to read on their IDs, identifying them as Khaled Ahmed Ibrahim Saeed and Hassan Yussif.
It was not immediately clear if they included the two Jordanian drivers kidnapped on Monday and named as Ahmed Salameh Hussein and Fayez Saad al-Adwan.
The drivers` employer, Daoud and Partners, announced on Tuesday it had agreed to halt its operations in Iraq in a bid to spare their lives.
The group holding the two drivers had reportedly threatened to kill them unless their employer halted its operations in the war-torn country within 72 hours.
The Death Squad of Mujahedeen of Iraq reportedly threatened this week to cut off the highway between Amman and Baghdad to deny access to trucks supplying American forces in Iraq.