A regularly updated summary of business briefs from around the region.

Kidnappers who had been cornered by police killed a Turkish engineer taken hostage with a driver and interpreter in Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday. The victim, named by Turkish diplomats as Eyup Orel, was working on a US-funded

Five Afghans working for a nongovernmental organization were killed after they were ambushed northeast of Kabul, the second deadly attack on aid workers in Afghanistan in less than two weeks, the interior minister said on Thursday.

OPEC President Abdullah Al Attiyah told Al Hayat daily the oil cartel would only ask Iraq's new oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr Al Uloum, to its September 24 session "if the United Nations recognizes the Iraqi government".

Private US companies will be enlisted to handle much of the work of reconstructing Iraq after the imminent US-led war.