Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan on Tuesday expressed China's deep concern over the kidnapping of eight Chinese nationals in Iraq.  

"China's Foreign Ministry is taking all measures to rescue the hostages," the spokesman told reporters in Beijing.

The Chinese Embassy in Baghdad confirmed on Tuesday that eight Chinese nationals were kidnapped by militants in Iraq, and pledged that the government would spare no efforts to secure their release.

Embassy diplomats said they were making all efforts to rescue the eight hostages, who went missing last week while traveling to Jordan.

The eight kidnapped persons are ordinary Chinese citizens who went to Iraq on individual basis to seek jobs 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, he added.

"The Chinese people cherish their friendship with the people of Iraq and have always sympathized with and supported them," Kong said.

Sources told Xinhua 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 eight went missing last week while traveling to Jordan, according to the sources.

They said the project, signed with Iraq's interim government, has nothing to do with the US-led multinational forces. A video tape aired by the al-Jazeera TV channel on Tuesday showed the eight hostages holding Chinese passports standing in a row, flanked by masked militants.

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 met their demands.

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2005)