Chinese President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, and other leaders are concerned about security of the eight Chinese hostages in Iraq, and ordered the Foreign Ministry and Chinese Embassy to Iraq to take effective measures to rescue the hostages, according to sources from the Foreign Ministry.

At present, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and embassy to Iraq are doing the rescue work through all channels, sources said.

The Chinese government is seriously concerned with the kidnapping of eight Chinese nationals in Iraq and the Foreign Ministry is taking all possible measures to rescue them, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said Tuesday in Beijing.

"The Chinese government hopes they could be released in safety as soon as possible. The Foreign Ministry is actively taking all possible measures to rescue them," Kong said.

The eight kidnapped persons are ordinary Chinese citizens who went to Iraq on individual basis to seek job by themselves in the country, Kong said. Since they failed to find any work, they rent an automobile to leave Iraq but were kidnapped on the way, Kong said.

"The Chinese people has always cherished friendly feelings toward the Iraqi people and sympathized and supported them," Kong told local reporters Tuesday evening.

Kong said the Chinese government has always taken the fundamental interests of the Iraqi people in mind while dealing with the Iraq issue.

The Chinese Embassy in Baghdad confirmed Tuesday that the eight Chinese people were kidnapped by militants while traveling to Jordan.

The Chinese, from China's eastern province of Fujian, were construction workers in a project to rebuild an Iraqi plant in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf.

The project, signed with Iraq's interim government,has nothing to do with the US-led multinational forces.

A video tape aired by the pan-Arab al-Jazeera TV channel Tuesday showed the eight hostages holding Chinese passports standing in a row, flanked by masked militants.

The kidnappers asked the Chinese government to clarify its stance on Iraq as a condition to free the hostages, the pan-Arab channel quoted a statement of the kidnappers as saying.

The pan-Arab channel did not release the text all at once, but part of the statement read out by one militant indicated that the group could free the hostages on condition that they "will quit their work with the occupation forces."

In a handwritten note delivered with the tape, the insurgent group calling itself al-Numan Brigades threatened to "kill the eight within 48 hours" unless China meet their demands.

By People's Daily Online