A Jordanian firm said today it had stopped construction work on a US base in Iraq to save the lives of two of its drivers kidnapped in Iraq and threatened with execution.
"I have decided to personally stop work and withdraw from that site which I work in Iraq," said Mr Rami Oweis, head of the construction and services company told reporters.
Mr Oweis was referring to a US base near Qaim, close to the Iraq-Syrian border where the Jordanian drivers were abducted.
But he declined to say whether the firm would halt its other operations in Iraq where it is believed to have secured several subcontracting deals with the US military.
A group calling itself Mujahideen Corps said yesterday it had kidnapped the two Jordanians and gave the company 72 hours to stop working with the US military in Iraq.
Mr Oweis said his company did not "work directly" with the US military in Iraq.
Several leading Jordanian businessmen are believed to work secretly with the US military, fearing reprisals by anti-American insurgents.
Insurgents have snatched several foreigners in the past week and threatened to kill them, piling pressure on foreign forces and firms to leave Iraq as a 15-month insurgency shows no sign of abating.
Meanwhile Iraqi fighters fired several mortar rounds in central Baghdad today, killing a civilian and wounding 14 foreign soldiers.
The attack came hours after a senior hospital official was murdered near the capital.
A US military spokesman said he had no information on the nationalities of the wounded troops.
The mortars were fired early today near the "Green Zone" compound that houses the interim Iraqi government and the US embassy.
One landed in a residential neighbourhood, killing an Iraqi civilian and wounding another, police said.
Many American soldiers are based inside the Green Zone. Mortars have often been fired at the compound in recent months and queues of vehicles awaiting security checks at its entrances have been attacked by suicide car bombs.
Yesterday, insurgents fired several mortars in central Baghdad, wounding one person. Other attacks across Iraq included car bombings and assassinations that killed eight people.