A hostage crisis in Iraq continued into Monday as at least 24 people, including two US soldiers, were killed in car bombings and other attacks.

After French parliamentary deputy Didier Julia failed to securethe release of two French hostages, the French government convened on Monday an emergency meeting over the issue.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin grouped at his Matignon Palace Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, Interior MinisterDominique de Villepin, Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, Education Minister Francois Fillon, Communication Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Justice Minister Dominique Perben to try to resume the release efforts.

At a press conference following the meeting, Barnier stressed that France's only demand "until the effective release of Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot will be their safety."

He added that the French government will "continue to work until this release with discretion, perseverance, a sense of responsibility but also patience."

As to the British hostage Kenneth Bigley, his brother declared on Monday that Bigley might have been handed over to a group which was preparing to make a ransom demand.

Bigley's brother said that according to information from friends, "Ken possibly has been handed over from the political baddies to the regular baddies," making it "a little easier" to free Bigley.

Also on Monday, Abu Dhabi Television reported that two Indonesian women hostages held by an Iraqi militant group have been released and handed over to the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Baghdad.

The reports said the two hostages will be handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross although Jakarta refused a request from the kidnappers to free cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, detained on suspected terror links, in exchange for the release ofthe hostages.

Also on Monday, Islamic militants distributed a video in Iraq, showing the killings of two men who identified themselves as an Italian of Iraqi origin and a Turk.

The video, dated Oct. 2, showed one of the militants reading a statement accusing the men of spying. The men are then shown blindfolded and kneeling in front of a ditch before being shot.

The first man admitted in the video being introduced to Iranianspies and later Turkish, American and Israeli agents.

While the international community is worrying about the fate ofthe two French hostages and the Briton still in the hands of kidnappers, armed militants carried out more deadly attacks on military and civil targets in Iraq, killing at least 24 people.

The US military said in a statement on Monday that two US soldiers were killed by small arms fire at a checkpoint jointly manned by Iraqi and US forces in Baghdad on Sunday, increasing thetotal number of US servicemen killed in Iraq to 1,050 since the start of war in March 2003.

Also in Baghdad, two separate powerful bombs exploded on Monday,killing at least 15 Iraqi people and wounding dozens of others.

Meanwhile, the US military said one US soldier was wounded in acar bomb blast targeting a US military convoy in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday.

Earlier in the day, a car bomb exploded near a primary school in the same city, killing seven people, including two children.

Source: Xinhua