Militants threaten to behead kidnapped Turkish driver in 48 hours: Turkish TV

Turkish television aired Saturday a video of a Turkish truck driver kidnapped in Iraq whom the militants threatened to behead in 48 hours if his company did not pull out by then.

Surrounded by masked gunmen, the man is shown sitting on the floor nervously, holding Turkish identity papers.

The TV identifies him as Tahsin Top, saying he worked for the Turkish firm Atahan and entered Iraq on July 24.

One of the militants read from a piece of paper, threatening to behead Top within 48 hours unless his company which he said supplies the US military leaves Iraq.

"Don't come, don't come for America... They are killing, they are slaughtering, they are doing every kind of things. Please, my driver colleagues don't come," the driver is heard saying.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Friday that three Turkish citizens are claimed to have been held hostage and two others are reported missing in Iraq.

All capabilities of the ministry and other relevant state institutions have been mobilized also with contribution of several Iraqi circles to find and rescue those Turkish citizens, the ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, it said that Turkey will strongly continue sending aid to meet humanitarian needs of Iraq's people with whom it has ties that have roots deep in history.

On Wednesday, two Turkish hostages who were kidnapped in Iraq by a militant group linked to al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were freed after their company decided to stop working in the country.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ankara-based Turkish Bilintur company promised to withdraw its personnel from Iraq after one of its drivers Murat Yuce was shot dead by his captors in Iraq.