An al-Qaida-led insurgent group said in an Internet statement Wednesday that it has decided to kill four kidnapped Russian Embassy workers after a deadline for meeting its demands passed.

The statement did not say whether the decision has been carried out.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council said Moscow had failed to meet its demands for a full withdrawal of troops from the war-torn region of Chechnya and that a 48-hour deadline set in a statement issued Monday had passed.

"Therefore, the Islamic court of the Mujahedeen Shura Council decided to implement God's law sentencing them (the four Russians) to death," the group said on an Islamic militant Web site where it often posts its statements.

The Shura Council is a grouping of seven Iraqi insurgent groups, most prominent among them al-Qaida in Iraq, which on Tuesday claimed responsibility for killing two kidnapped U.S. soldiers.

The statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, did not state that the Russians were killed. The four embassy workers were abducted June 3 in an attack on their car in which a fifth Russian was killed.