BERLIN, April 3 (Xinhua) -- The German government on Tuesday condemned the Iraqi kidnappers who issued a new ultimatum: they will kill two German hostages unless Germany pulls its soldiers out of Afghanistan within the next ten days.

    The way the 61-year-old woman and her son were shown in a video should be condemned, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger.

    The ultimatum came after a previous one expired on March 20 as German government had refused to be "blackmailed."

    A crisis team was operating "very intensively" to study the video found shortly after midnight, according to German spokesman Thomas Steg, who refused to say whether the government was in contact with the kidnappers.

    Security expert Georg Thamm told German broadcast N-TV that the kidnappers' move of allowing the previous deadline to pass could indicate they are more interested in a ransom than any political aims.

    The video showed the 61-year-old woman, who looks exhausted, begging for help.

    This woman represents a country which "stands in hostility with Islam and Muslims," said the kidnappers who called themselves "the Brigades of Arrows of Righteousness."

    The German woman, married to an Iraqi professor, was kidnapped early February along with her 20-year-old son in Baghdad.

    It is the third abduction of Germans in Iraq even though Germany vigorously opposed the US-led war in 2003.

    Some 3,000 German troops are deployed on a reconstruction mission in northern Afghanistan.