Pakistan has denounced the killing of two of its nationals by militants in Iraq as a crime against humanity and Islam.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mr Masood Khan said the killings had devastated the families of the victims and the Pakistani nation.
"We strongly condemn these brutal murders," Mr Khan said. "The captors have committed a crime against humanity, against Islam and against the people of Pakistan and the people of Iraq.
"No reason, no cause could have justified killing of these poor migrant workers," Mr Khan added.
Al Jazeera television yesterday said that militants in Iraq had killed two Pakistani hostages who disappeared last week and have released an Iraqi. The Arabic-language television channel said it had received a videotape showing the killings but would not air it as it was too gruesome.
The kidnappers had vowed in a videotape shown on Al Jazeera on Monday that they would kill the Pakistanis and threatened to do the same to the Iraqi if their employer did not cease operations in Iraq. They said they freed the Iraqi after he "recanted."
Pakistan had identified the two men as Mr Raja Azad Khan and Mr Sajjad Naeem who worked for the Kuwaiti branch of Saudi group Al Tamimi.
Al Tamimi works in Iraq for US firm Kellogg, Brown and Root, a contractor to the US military and subsidiary of Halliburton, the company formerly chaired by US Vice President Dick Cheney .