Philippines Reject demand for early Withdrawal from Iraq
Pakistan Times Monitoring Desk

MANILA (Philippines): The Philippines on Sunday rejected a fresh 24-hour deadline from Iraqi militants who are threatening to execute a Filipino hostage if the government does not pull its troops from Iraq a month ahead of its scheduled withdrawal.

Filipino Hostage Still Alive?

And a report from Baghdad says that Filipino held hostage in Iraq is still alive, and his kidnappers have extended a deadline for his threatened execution by two days, a senior Philippines diplomat said Sunday.

"I can tell you this much, the hostage is alive as of now,” the diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "The deadline has been extended by two days."

The same diplomat earlier retracted a statement saying that the captors of Angelo de la Cruz had extended by nine days their deadline to carry out their threat to execute him unless the Philippines withdrew its 51-man contingent by July 20 -- one month earlier than scheduled.●