BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi insurgents snatching lone hostages in their battle against the US-led military pushed the Phillipines to advance its troop pullout and send a handful more home and a Saudi company to abandon work in Iraq (news - web sites).
Thailand, meanwhile, refused to extend the deployment of its 451-strong contingent, despite a request by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) because of the security crisis in Iraq, and said it had started withdrawing its troops. The last soldiers will "arrive home on September 20," Defence Minister Chettha Thanajaro said.
Manila's withdrawal of its tiny contingent to try to save the life of a Filipino, angered America and Australia who saw it as giving in to terror.
"It's disappointing to see a decision that sends the wrong signal to terrorists," spokesman Scott McClellan said. "You cannot negotiate with terrorists or make a separate peace with terrorists."
The planned withdrawals by Manila and Bangkok deprive the United States of two more allies in Iraq. Spain and several Latin American countries pulled their troops after the deadly Madrid train bombings in March.
The grim cost of failure in efforts to save hostage lives has been seen in several beheadings. On Wednesday, local police and the US military confirmed that a headless body clad in an orange jumpsuit had been found in the river.
Several hostages have been dressed in orange jumpsuits in video footage released by their captors who then killed them.
The fate of a Bulgarian hostage, threatened with death by Wednesday evening, remained unknown on Friday. His captors demanded that US forces release Iraqi prisoners within 24 hours.
Another Bulgarian was killed by his captors, his death being confirmed by the Bulgarian government. He is believed to be Georgy Lazov, 30, but his identity has not been confirmed.
In Riyadh, a Saudi company with an Egyptian employee held hostage in Iraq confirmed Friday it had ended all its activities in that country to save the captive's life.
Faisal bin Ali al-Nuheit, which provided trucks and drivers to ferry oil to Iraq "has ended all its activities in Iraq. The company has withdrawn all its vehicles from Iraq since Wednesday 9 pm (1800 GMT)," said Ali Awny Ali, manager of the firm's branch in Jubail, eastern Saudi Arabia.
"All (company) vehicles have returned to Saudi Arabia," Ali said.
Egyptian driver Sayed Mohammed Sayed al-Garbawi was abducted by the Tahid wal Jihad group (Unity and Holy War) of suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, according to Al-Jazeera television.
Nor was there any let-up in Iraq's daily diet of violence.
An explosion near a US army convoy rocked central Baghdad on Friday though it was not immediately clear if it caused any casualties, a US military spokesman said.
During the night, two people were wounded when grenades were thrown at a US convoy in the capital.
In clashes between insurgents and US forces on Friday in the flashpoint western region of Fallujah, 13 people were wounded, Iraqi hospital and police sources said.
To the north, in the city of Kirkuk, a policeman was shot dead and the bullet-riddled body of a Kurdish peshmerga fighter was also found.
The shooting took place in an area of the city where tensions are high between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, and where police units have come under frequent attack.
Outside the city, insurgents on Friday fired mortar rounds at a pipeline connecting Kirkuk's oil fields to the Turkish port of Ceyhan but missed their target, an industry official said.
A second official from the state-owned Northern Oil Company (NOC) added that a blaze caused by a successful attack on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline on Thursday -- which halted crucial oil exports -- had been extinguished.
"The pipeline is still shut and repair work will start on Saturday morning," he said, without indicating when it would be in working order.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Thursday predicted more trouble before stability is returned to Iraq, where thousands of civilians and hundreds of US soldiers have died in the past 15 months since the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime.
"The path ahead is long and there are a lot of difficulties and challenges," the premier told a news conference in the capital.
"But we are determined with the help of God to win this challenge," said Allawi, who took control of an interim Iraqi government on June 28.
He announced the setting up of a General Security Directorate (GSD) that will aim to prevent the deadly stream of attacks.
In the past two days, at least 20 people have been killed and more than 60 wounded in two car bombings, one outside the government's main compound in Baghdad and another targeting a police station west of the capital.
In the United States, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) said he would set three conditions for withdrawing US troops if he were elected.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Kerry said the conditions were "to measure the level of stability" in Iraq, "to measure the outlook for the stability to hold" and "to measure the ability ... of their security forces" to defend Iraq.
Until each condition is satisfied, Kerry said, "I will provide for the world's need not to have a failed state in Iraq."
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) struggled to persuade the public that his decision to oust Saddam by military means was right.
His Labour party Thursday lost a key by-election in Leicester South, central England, which it had held almost without break for the past five decades, to a candidate from the vehemently anti-Iraq war Liberal Democrat party.