Iraq group threatens to kill British hostage

By Peter Graff and Paul Tait

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Militants holding five Britons in Iraq threatened in a video on Tuesday to kill one of them in 10 days as a "first warning" unless Britain withdrew its troops.

Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level in nearly two years and U.S. President George W. Bush said his "surge" strategy of sending 30,000 additional troops was working.

The U.S. military said 40 senior al Qaeda figures had been killed or captured in November but the appearance of a British hostage in a video aired on Arabic-language al Arabiya channel underscored the continuing threat of violence.

The hostage was one of five Britons -- a computer instructor and his four bodyguards -- seized by gunmen from inside a Finance Ministry building in Baghdad in May.

The video, dated November 18, set a deadline of 10 days from the date it was broadcast for Britain to pull its troops from Iraq. British troops are deployed in the mainly Shi'ite south.

"My name is Jason. Today is November 18. I have been here now 173 days and I feel we've been forgotten," said one of the hostages on the video as he sat in front of a banner of the Shi'ite Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

The video showed a statement in which the group threatened that "this hostage will be killed as a first warning, which would be followed with details that you would not wish to know".

Britain condemned the video. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "No matter what the cause, hostage-taking can never be justified. We again call on those holding the men to release them unconditionally."