British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says there is what he calls
"credible information" that two of the three remaining British hostages
held captive in Iraq are dead.
Miliband said Wednesday the British Foreign Office has informed the
families of Alan McMenemy and Alec MacLachlan that it believes both men
have probably been killed.
The two were among a group of five Britons who were seized from an
Iraqi Finance Ministry building in Baghdad by men disguised as Iraqi
police in 2007. The bodies of two of the other hostages were handed
over to British authorities last month.
The fate of the fifth hostage, 36-year-old Peter Moore, remains
unclear. Foreign Secretary Miliband said the British government is
focusing all efforts to ensure Moore's safe release.
A group calling itself the Islamic Shi'ite Resistance in Iraq says it
was behind the abductions. The group has demanded the release of nine
of its members held in prison.
Since their abduction, the British hostages have appeared occasionally
in videos, but last month the bodies of two of the security contractors
in the group were released.