Iraqi judges have ordered the conditional release of three prisoners in US custody, including one of two women held by US forces, the country's national security adviser has said.
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| Dr Rihab Taha |
Mr Kassim Daoud told a news conference that the release would be conditional and would not happen for a few days.
"Iraqi judges decided to release them because they didn't have any evidence. The judges decided on a conditional release. It will not happen today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow," he said.
Militants say they have killed two US hostages and will behead a Briton unless Iraqi women are freed from US prisons.
The US embassy said earlier that neither of the two women in US custody would be released imminently.
Earlier today, the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Jordanian al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in an Internet statement it had killed American Jack Hensley because its demands for the release of female prisoners from jails in Iraq had not been met. US and Iraqi officials said a body, yet to be identified, had been found.
"Lions of the Tawhid and Jihad have slaughtered the second American hostage after the deadline," the statement said, adding that footage of the killing would be posted on the Internet.
"The British hostage will meet the same fate if the British government does not do what must be done to release him."
US forces say they only hold two female Iraqi prisoners. Rihab Taha and Huda Ammash, dubbed "Dr Germ" and "Mrs Anthrax" by US forces, are held in a prison for high-level suspects.
There was no confirmation from the kidnappers that their release was specifically what they were seeking.
The kidnappers' latest statement was posted 24 hours after Hensley's compatriot Eugene Armstrong was killed, his head sawn off by a black-clad, balaclava-wearing militant using a long knife. The CIA says it believes Zarqawi was probably the one wielding the blade.
In the latest in a wave of car bomb attacks in the capital this month, a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle in a crowded commercial street as dozens of men wanting to join the country's security forces queued up to photocopy their documents. Would-be recruits have been repeatedly targeted by insurgents.
Officials at Baghdad's Yarmuk hospital said 11 people were killed. At the scene, scores of sandals and shoes lay in pools of blood on the pavement. Iraqis covered burnt flesh lying on the ground with store banners torn down by the explosion. A nearby ice cream stall was destroyed in the blast.
Dazed survivors were shocked the area was targeted.
"They just bombed people eating ice cream," said Humam Abdul-Hadi, owner of a nearby shop. Shrapnel wounds peppered his face and neck and his T-shirt was stained with blood.