BAGHDAD, Sept 7 (AFP) - Masked members of a radical Islamic faction called the Secret Islamic Army of Iraq urged a rival group to free two French journalists held hostage since August 20, in a video obtained by AFP Tuesday.
Two brigades of the SIA group called on the Islamic Army of Iraq to free Le Figaro journalist Georges Malbrunot and Radio France Internationale correspondent Christian Chesnot "as a gesture of cooperation among resistance groups".
The fate of the two men remains unknown despite frantic diplomatic efforts by the French government and appeals by Muslim leaders around the world for their release.
The latest appeal from the SIA group came as armed kidnappers seized at gunpoint two Italian women working for a charity in Baghdad and another two Iraqis.
A statement purportedly from the Islamic Army of Iraq posted on an Islamist website on Monday gave France 48 hours to accept three new conditions for their release: agreeing to a recent truce offer by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, payment of five million dollars ransom and a pledge not to get involved in Iraq.
A senior cleric from the strict Wahhabi current of Islam in Iraq on Sunday issued a fatwa (Islamic decree) demanding the captors of the two French reporters free them immediately.
Earlier Tuesday, French diplomats met with influential Sunni Muslim clerics over the fate of the two journalists.
"We had talks with the French ambassador and his envoy and we told them how France supports the Arab world and Iraq," said Hatem al-Zaid, a member of the Muslim Scholars Committee, an association of fundamentalist clerics which has contacts with the insurgency.
"We are just waiting and hoping the French hostages will be freed."
Hubert Colin de Verdiere, a French diplomatic envoy, and ambassador Bernard Bajolet were not immediately available for comment.