by Jean-Marc Mojon
BAGHDAD, Aug 31 (AFP) - France intensified efforts Tuesday to free two journalists held by Islamic militants in Iraq and spare them the fate of 12 Nepalese hostages reportedly executed by their captors.
French President Jacques Chirac issued an 11-hour plea for the release of the two men, who warned in a video they could be killed if France did not meet the kidnappers' demands to rescind a controversial ban on Islamic headscarves.
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, on an urgent rescue mission in the Middle East, enlisted help from Iraq's neighbour Jordan, while Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was to hold a top-level emergency meeting in Paris.
The crisis has underscored the security nightmare facing Iraq's government even after rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr performed a spectacular about-face by calling for a nationwide ceasefire, paving the way for a move into politics.
The firebrand Shiite leader had posed the most serious challenge yet to the interim government's authority. His surprise announcement offered renewed hope of improved stability in Iraq and soothed a nervous oil market in New York.
But the fate of journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, held by a radical Sunni group called the Islamic Army of Iraq, remained uncertain with the kidnappers setting a new deadline of late Tuesday for France to meet its demands.
The initial deadline set by the group for France to repeal its headscarf law was Monday night but the Arabic satellite television network Al-Jazeera said the kidnappers had extended their ultimatum, giving France another 24-hours to explore its regional contacts.
"Failure to revoke it might cost us our lives. It's a question of time -- maybe minutes -- before we are among the dead," Chesnot said in a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera.
The new tape left Paris in an uncomfortable position after insisting it would not yield to the kidnappers' demands and that the ban would indeed come into effect when the school year starts on Thursday.
Barnier appealed for help in talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher, who said Amman was in contact with groups in Iraq that helped secure the release of a number of Jordanian hostages.
"There is not much time but I hope we will obtain positive results," he Moasher said.
Islamic militants have carried out a spate of kidnappings of mainly foreign nationals but it was the first time hostage-takers imposed conditions0 affecting policy issues outside Iraq.
The kidnappings have drawn condemnation across the globe, even from some radical Islamic organisations which nevertheless remain opposed to France's action over the headscarf issue.
The abductions have shocked France, which was vocally opposed to the war on Iraq and is regarded as a friend to the Arab world.
Sparking heightened fears over the fate of the two French reporters, an Islamist website posted a statement claiming that 12 Nepalese taken hostage in Iraq by the Islamist Army of Ansar had been executed.
The statement by the Al-Qaeda linked group was accompanied by pictures of what was claimed to be the bodies of the hostages.
The 12 were last shown in a videotape on Saturday reading a statement saying they had been misled into working in Iraq by "American lies".
Nepal said it could not immediately confirm the claim.
Meanwhile, the streets of the Baghdad slum which have been the scene of relentless fighting between US troops and Sadr's Mehdi Army were quiet as the cleric's followers appeared to follow his order to silence their guns.
"The commander of the Sadr movement, leader Moqtada Sadr, announced today in Najaf the end of all fighting in the whole of Iraq and the integration of his movement in the political process," Sadr aide Sheikh Naim al-Qaabi said.
"This decision shows that the Sadr movement wants peace and participation in the country's political process, and within the next two days the Sadr movement will explain its political vision."
The cleric's surprise move coincided with the visit by a high-ranking Iraqi government delegation to Iran, where elements of the Islamic regime are accused of offering some level of backing to Sadr.
He also timed his jump into the troubled country's political swamp three days after the end of a weeks-long standoff between his militia and US troops around the holiest site in Shiite Islam, the Imam Ali mausoleum in Najaf.
The peaceful resolution of the siege in the central city which saw US troops retreat and Mehdi fighters leave without surrendering their weapons made him a hero within his camp and boosted his national profile.
The ceasefire announcement also provided grounds for satisfaction for the embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who repeatedly invited the young cleric to join the political arena during the Najaf crisis.
The fresh hope of increasing stability in Iraq also came as George W. Bush's camp aggressively defended the decision to go to war during the Republican party convention in New York to boost the US president's re-election bid.
Oil markets welcomed the truce call late Monday, with the price of the barrel dropping well under 42 dollars despite a string of attacks on the country's oil infrastructure.
A Southern Oil Company official had already announced that crude was being loaded at a rate of 1.8 million barrels a day from southern pipelines, which account for 90 percent of Iraq's exports.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim Ismail, a top education ministry official in Kirkuk, was assassinated, while three bodyguards and seven policemen were wounded in a string of attacks in the oil-rich northern city, police said.