by Sylvie Briand
BAGHDAD, Sept 2 (AFP) - France was engaged in more frantic diplomatic efforts Thursday to save the lives of two journalists held in Iraq as three hostages from Turkey were reportedly killed by their kidnappers.
A deadline for France to revoke a controversial ban introduced Thursday on the Islamic headscarf in state schools has passed with no word from the self-styled Islamic Army of Iraq, which seized the two men on August 20.
But a delegation of French Muslim leaders visiting Iraq Thursday said it was confident that Le Figaro journalist Georges Malbrunot and Radio France correspondent Christian Chesnot would be freed.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier was back in Amman, as he shuttled between Arab capitals appealing for help in securing the release of the two reporters being held by an group, implicated in a string of abductions and beheadings.
The flurry of activity came as Arabic-language satellite television Al-Jazeera said it had a video showing the execution of three Turkish hostages in Iraq.
Police and medical officers in Iraq told AFP the bullet-riddled bodies of three Turkish truckers had been found on the roadside outside the rebel bastion of Samarra north of Baghdad, possibly the hostages.
In Ankara, a Turkish official said the Al-Jazeera report about the execution of the men -- held by a group linked to alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi -- "seems credible."
Al-Jazeera said the Tawhid wal Jihad group had threatened to kill foreigners in Iraq and warned that "the time for mercy is over."
Islamist militants have captured dozens of foreigners in a bid to destabilise efforts by the interim Iraqi government and coalition troops to restore security to the violence-torn country.
The kidnapping of the French journalists has drawn international condemnation and unprecedented appeals for their release from Muslim leaders across the globe.
The hostages warned in a video that they faced death if France did not revoke the headscarf law, but Paris has vowed to stand its ground saying it must protect the country`s strictly secular traditions.
The law prohibiting the wearing of headscarves and other "conspicuous" religious insignia, such as Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, went into effect Thursday with the start of the academic year in France.
"We are evaluating the situation moment by moment," said a diplomat in Amman.
Barnier has also been to Egypt and Qatar, where he met with political and religious leaders.
A delegation from the French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM) flew in to Baghdad and pronounced its optimism for a resolution to the crisis after holding talks with religious leaders.
"We leave with confidence and full of hope," delegation chief Abdullah Zekhri told AFP at the end of the short visit.
"The kidnappers wish to free them but they do not know how to do it because they are afraid about the Americans and also that the hostages could fall into the hands of another group. These are the obstacles to freeing them."
Another delegation member, Fouad Allaoui, also sounded a positive note.
"There are many reasons to be confident and not the contrary. Our mission is finished and I believe it was not in vain."
The French delegation met with the Council of the Muslim Ulema (scholars), an association of conservative Sunni clerics who have helped mediate previous releases of hostages in Iraq.
A member of the delegation told Le Figaro the visit showed their solidarity to the French state despite the controversy over the headscarf ban.
"We want to show our attachment to the republic, to the nation and to French society. Everyone must understand that laying a hand on a member of French society affects all French people, all members of the Muslim community," Mohammed Bechari told the newspaper.
Another seven hostages from Kenya, India and Egypt were freed on Wednesday after their Kuwaiti employer paid more than half a million dollar ransom, but 12 Nepalese workers have been killed by their captors.