A TV grab taken from a video tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera news channel shows 28 August 2004 a French hostage with Arabic writing in the background reading "The Islamic Army in Iraq". (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

     BAGHDAD, Aug. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Islamic militants who held two French hostage gave Paris 48 hours to scrap a ban on Muslim head scarves, according to footage aired by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel on Saturday.

    A TV anchor said the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq was holding the two journalists to protest the French government's approval of a law in March to ban students from wearing religious apparel in French schools.

    The group described the law as "an aggression on the Islamic religion and personal freedoms" and gave the French government 48 hours to overturn the law without mentioning any ultimatum.

    Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of the Paris daily Le Figaro have not been in touch with their news organizations since Aug. 19, the French Foreign Ministry said last week.

    Al-Jazeera aired a video tape showing the two men standing in front of a banner bearing the name of "the Islamic Army in Iraq."

    "I would like to tell my family that everything is okay," one of them said to the camera.

    The French Foreign Ministry issued a brief statement calling for the journalists' release. "The services of the French Embassy in Baghdad, like the French authorities, are mobilized more than ever. Once again, we call for the liberation of the two French journalists," the statement said.

    Meanwhile, peace-making efforts continued in violence-torn Iraq Saturday as five Iraqi ministers visited battle-scarred Najaf and discussed plans for rebuilding the holy city with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who brokered a deal to end the three-week clashes there.

    The ministers arrived in two US Black Hawk helicopters and were driven through Najaf streets littered with wreckage and ammunitionin a convoy led by police cars with sirens wailing.

    They surveyed the city's Imam Ali shrine which had hosted supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr since Aug. 5but was now empty.

    During a 20-minute meeting, the ministers discussed with Sistani a government plan to rebuild Najaf and to restore water, electricity, sewage and hospital services there.

    Fighting between Sadr's Mehdi Army and the US-led Iraqi forces ended on Thursday when Sistani returned after medical treatment in London.

    However, violence erupting elsewhere in Iraq Saturday showed the size of the task facing Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi as he prepares for elections set for January.

    Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint Saturday in the northern Iraqi town of Baquba, killing six policemen and wounding 11 others,medical sources and witnesses said.

    The attack took place on a main road in Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, at about 4:00 p.m. (1200 GMT) when gunmen opened fire from two approaching minibuses on the police checkpoint, witnesses said.

    In Falluja, US planes bombed targets in an eastern district. In the northern city of Mosul, gunmen shot dead a university lectureras she drove to work, police and witnesses said.

    A mortar attack in the town of Baiji, north of Baghdad, killed an Iraqi civilian and wounded a civilian and a policeman, the US military said. Several people were also wounded in mortar attacks in Baghdad. Enditem