IRAQ Another beheading threatened

The death toll in the Baqouba car bombing rose to 70.
BAQOUBA, Iraq (AP) -- The insurgent group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi kidnapped a Somali truck driver in Iraq and threatened to behead him if his Kuwaiti company doesn't stop working there, according to a videotape aired today.
Iraqi health officials, meanwhile, raised the death toll by two to 70 from a suicide car bomb that devastated a busy, shop-filled street in Baqouba. Casualties from the vehicle-born bomb blast, which targeted Iraqi men waiting outside a police station to apply to join the police, overwhelmed Baqouba's hospital.
The blast, one of the deadliest single-bomb attacks since Saddam Hussein's fall more than a year ago, came just three days before the country is to convene a national conference that will choose an interim assembly -- considered a crucial step toward establishing democracy.
Iraqi Healty Ministry spokesman Saad al-Amili, announcing the higher death toll, said that 56 people were wounded.
Somali hostage
The videotape of the Somali, released by the Tawhid and Jihad group, was aired by pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera and showed three masked and armed militants standing behind a seated man waving a passport. Al-Jazeera's news presenter identified the hostage as Ali Ahmed Moussa and said the militants had threatened to behead their captive in 48 hours if the Kuwaiti company for which he works doesn't meet its demands.
According to an Associated Press tally, he is the 22nd truck driver of about 70 people who have been kidnapped in insurgents' efforts to hinder reconstruction and drive out coalition forces.
Tawhid and Jihad -- which means "monotheism" and "holy war" in Arabic -- has claimed responsibility before for a number of bloody attacks and beheadings of foreigners it has abducted, including U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il and Bulgarian truck driver Georgi Lazov, 30.
Pakistani killings
News of the latest hostage drama in Iraq followed Wednesday's announcement by another militant group that it had killed two Pakistani contractors whom it had recently kidnapped.
In a videotape sent to Pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera Wednesday, a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said they had carried out a threat to kill the Pakistanis because their country was discussing sending troops to Iraq.
The newsreader said the video showed the corpses of the two men, but the station declined to show the footage.
The men were identified by Pakistan as engineer Raja Azad, 49, and driver Sajad Naeem, 29, both who worked for the Kuwait-based al-Tamimi group in Baghdad.
"Those who have committed this crime have caused the greatest harm both to humanity and Islam," a statement from Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and his prime minister said today.
U.S. death toll
Also Thursday, the U.S. military said fighting between insurgents and American forces west of Baghdad killed two U.S. Marines.
The two Marines died in clashes Wednesday in Anbar province, the statement said.
The U.S. military had initially said two coalition troops were killed during heavy fighting Wednesday in the Anbar city of Ramadi, but it had declined to reveal their nationalities.
Multiple U.S. military camps in Ramadi came under mortar attack Wednesday, and two U.S. helicopters made emergency landings after coming attack from small arms before returning their base, the military said.
The deaths of the two Marines takes the tally of U.S. personnel killed in Iraq to at least 908 since the war began, according to an Associated Press tally.
The Polish Defense Ministry announced that one of its soldiers was killed and six were wounded in a separate attack.
The Polish casualties came when the troops were hit by shrapnel from a boobytrap set off by remote control, the ministry said.
Poland sent troops in support of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and now commands some 6,200 multinational troops in south-central Iraq from 16 countries, including 2,400 of its own.
Internet response
The large number of civilian casualties in attacks has angered many and even raised questions on Islamic Web sites, where the morality of killing Muslims who work for U.S. coalition forces in Iraq has been debated.
In an audio recording posted Wednesday on one site, a speaker purported to be the spiritual adviser of an Iraqi insurgency group justified killing fellow Muslims when they protect infidels and also the deaths of bystanders in an attack.
"If infidels take Muslims as protectors and Muslims do not fight them, it is allowed to kill the Muslims," said the speaker, identified as Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami, spiritual leader of Tawhid and Jihad, a group led by Al-Qaida-linked Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.