Militants kill 12 Nepal hostages
One man apparently beheaded, 11 shot in head
 |  Images of the hostages in the videotape aired last week. |
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 Militants have killed 23 hostages in Iraq in recent months.
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(CNN) -- Iraqi militants have killed 12 Nepalis they captured just over a week ago, the militants and a Nepalese official said Tuesday.
It was the largest mass killing of captives in the grueling war against the insurgency that has followed the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
A Web site associated with a group calling itself Jaish Ansar al-Sunna posted gruesome still images and video of militants beheading one of the Nepalis and shooting to death 11 more as they lay on the ground face down.
Nepal's ambassador to Qatar, Somananda Suman, confirmed the deaths in an interview on the Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera.
The still images on the Web site appear to have been taken from the video.
Jaish Ansar al-Sunna, which claimed August 23 to have kidnapped the 12 Nepalis, said they were killed "for their cooperation with the United States in fighting Islam and its people."
The group described the men as working for a Nepalese company that works under a Jordanian firm doing business in Iraq.
The killings nearly double the number of hostages believed to have been killed in Iraq, and are by far the largest number of captives to be killed at once.
The claims come at a time that another Islamic group is holding two French journalists hostage, threatening to kill them unless the government of France revokes a law banning Muslim girls from wearing head scarves in state schools.
The deadline for executing the two, which would have come Tuesday night in Baghdad, has been pushed back to Wednesday night, an Arab League official said.(Full story)
Iyad Mansoor, director-general of the Morning Star Company, a Jordan-based services firm which had contracted the 12 Nepalese workers for jobs in Iraq, told The Associated Press he was shocked to hear the news.
"The last I heard was that the Nepalese government was in contact with Iraqi clergymen and others in an effort to set the 12 men free."
Journalist Akhilesh Upadhyay told CNN from Nepal that the news had been greeted from the men's families with shock.
Sudarshan Khadka, 23, the elder brother of hostage Ramesh Khadka, 19, told him he had just heard the news and was not sure whether it was true but was "stunned." He did not know how to break the news to his parents, he said.
CNN has confirmed 23 hostages killed by militants in Iraq. The dead include one American, two Bulgarians, a Dane, two Italians, one Lebanese, two Pakistanis, a South Korean, a Turk and the 12 Nepalis.
In four other incidents, different groups have claimed to have killed hostages, but CNN has been unable to independently confirm any of the information.
|  The brother of hostage Ramesh Khadka, Sudarshan Khadka, said he did not know how to tell his parents. |
In the most recent, a video posted in early August shows a man claiming to be an Egyptian spying for the Americans before he is decapitated.
A video in which militants shoot and kill a man they identify as U.S. Army Reserve Spec.. Keith Matthew Maupin -- reportedly captured in April -- was released in June. U.S. officials were unable to identify the man as Maupin, however.
In a third incident, two Germans were believed captured and killed in April.
Other developments
Iraq's interim prime minister Tuesday pledged millions to rebuild the war-torn Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City. Ayad Allawi met with tribal leaders and pledged money to create jobs and repair the country's infrastructure, including $385 million for Sadr City.In Kirkuk Tuesday, police said Ibrahim Ismaeel, the general director of education for Turkmens in that city, was killed by unknown gunmen while he was on his way to his office. His bodyguard and three civilians were wounded in the attack. This follows a kidnapping last week of two high-ranking members of the Turkmen National Front, who were later released after extensive negotiations.In the northern city of Mosul Tuesday attackers ambushed a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb and rocket-propelled grenades, and troops returned fire. One insurgent was killed, the U.S. military said. A civilian caught in the crossfire was killed, and another was wounded, military officials said. The U.S. military Tuesday reported the death of a soldier two days earlier in a roadside bombing. A Task Force Olympia soldier was killed and two were wounded when their convoy was struck south of Mosul Sunday by an improvised explosive device. The wounded soldiers were taken to the U.S. Army Combat Support Hospital in Mosul. One was released and the other was in stable condition. The death brings the total of U.S. military fatalities in the war to 977.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
