THE US-led coalition in Iraq was under unprecedented strain last night after an Islamic militant group threatened to burn alive three kidnapped Japanese civilians unless Tokyo withdrew its troops from the country.

Chilling video footage, broadcast on the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera, showed the two men and one woman being forced to lie on the floor as knives and swords were pointed at their throats.

“Withdraw your forces from our country and go home or we will burn them alive and feed them to the fighters. You have three days,” said the message from the captors.

A British man was also kidnapped, and armed Iraqi fighters seized seven South Korean missionaries and two Palestinian aid workers in a savage new tactic apparently designed to break the will of the coalition’s junior members. A Canadian was also kidnapped.

The two Palestinians, who held Israeli identity cards, were later paraded on Iranian TV and accused of spying for Israel.

The kidnapped Briton was named as Gary Teeley, 37, who was believed to have been working as a civilian contractor on a US base near the southern city of al-Nasiriyah.

The Foreign Office said last night that Mr Teeley was married with five children and had been working as a consultant for a laundry company.

The Koreans were later freed, but the Japanese hostage crisis has the potential to bring down the Government of Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister.

The military contingents of other coalition partners, who had been deliberately deployed in Iraq’s previously peaceful Shia south, have also come under sustained attack.

American soldiers rushed to reinforce Polish and Bulgarian troops in Karbala after they fought all-night gun battles with radical Shia militiamen.

In the Sunni town of Fallujah, where four US contractors were lynched last week, Marines were caught up in ferocious street fighting more intense than any resistance encountered during last year's invasion. The insurgents fired mortars and rocket propelled grenades and staged hit and run raids, only to melt away in alleyways. Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US military leader in Iraq, vowed that the town of al-Kut would be re-taken “imminently” after Ukrainian troops were driven out by Shia gunmen.

Tony Blair discussed the deepening Iraq crisis in a telephone call to President Bush, but Downing Street denied that the Prime Minister had been doing a “ring round” of other coalition leaders to shore up support.

A spokesman insisted that Britain and America remained resolute in the face of the latest violent uprisings, and said Mr Blair would use his visit to Washington next week to underline the coalition’s determination to transfer power to an Iraqi-led adminstration on June 30.

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