There is no Bulgarian troops held hostages in Iraq, Bulgaria's Defense Ministry said Saturday.

The head of the Bulgarian contingent deployed in Karbala, Lieutenant General Petko Lilov had confirmed in a telephone conversation that the whole of Bulgarian military staff is safe and sound.

However, there is no information yet about possible kidnapping of Bulgarian civilians in Iraq.

In a footage aired by Al-Arabia TV on Saturday, an Iraqi militant group said it was holding 30 foreign hostages. The self-represented spokesperson threatened to decapitate them unless US forces lifted their seal-off of the town of Fallujah.

"We have Japanese, Bulgarian, Israeli, American, Spanish and Korean hostages. Their numbers are 30," a masked man holding a Kalashnikov rifle said.

The speaker of the group of eight masked men said they were called the "Brigades of the Hero Martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin," in reference to the founder of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, whom Israel assassinated last month.

The footage, which was in Arabic, did not show any of the alleged hostages. However, it showed the body of an unidentified and decapitated man in the sand.

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