ISLAMABAD, July 29: Pakistan has discussed sending troops to Iraq as part of an Islamic force but has not made any decision, officials said on Thursday, as outrage welled up in the country over the killing of two citizens held hostage in Iraq.

President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain issued a joint statement condemning the execution of the two workers. "Those who have committed this crime have caused the greatest harm both to humanity and Islam," the leaders said in the statement after Al-Jazeera television said it had received a videotape of the executions that was too gruesome to broadcast.

The killings came as Islamabad grappled with a Saudi proposal for Arab and Muslim nations other than Iraq's immediate neighbours to provide troops to help secure the country.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Saudi Arabia on a tour of the Middle East, also telephoned Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri to express sorrow over the deaths. A foreign ministry statement said they also talked on Pakistan-India peace talks and the situation in Iraq.

The officials also said that Prime Minister Shujaat Hussain discussed a possible joint Muslim force when he met Saudi leaders in Jeddah at the weekend. "The prime minister was briefed about the idea of an Islamic force which had been earlier mooted in the conference of Iraq's neighbouring countries held in Cairo just prior to the visit," Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told Reuters.

Analysts have said the hostages may not have been killed if Islamabad had categorically said it would not send troops to Iraq. Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told the National Assembly on Thursday that a decision on sending troops to Iraq was still in the balance.

"We had repeatedly told the kidnappers that we have not yet taken a decision on sending troops to Iraq but despite that they have killed both," Mr Kasuri told the lower house. However, analysts say the government's inability to announce in clear terms that it would not send troops to Iraq has increased the threat to Pakistanis working in Gulf and Middle East.

Relatives of the killed hostages also blamed the government. "Pervez Musharraf got my son killed," sobbed the mother of Sajjad Naeem, one of the two dead men. "Had he announced that he would not send troops to Iraq, my son would not have been killed." -Reuters