Prisoner swap offered for captured US soldier

1.40pm

UPDATED REPORT - WASHINGTON - A hazy videotape aired by an Arab television network on Friday appeared to show a missing US soldier held by heavily armed and hooded insurgents offering to trade him for their captured comrades.

The Al Jazeera network broadcast the tape, which showed a white man dressed in military fatigues sitting on the floor surrounded by masked gunmen. Speaking softly, he identified himself as "Keith Matthew Maupin."

The US military's Central Command said it could not confirm that Private Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio, was being held captive in Iraq.

But a spokesman for Maupin's parents in Ohio said the soldier on the tape was their son, known as Matt, and they were praying for his safe return.

"We have seen the videotape of Matt as all of you have, I'm sure. Our family is very happy and prays for Matt's safety," family spokesman Carl Cottrell told reporters outside the Maupin home in Willowville, Ohio, near Cincinnati.

"On behalf of his mother ... and the rest of his family, we'd like to say, 'Matt, we love you and we can't wait until we get to hug you again."'

The soldier's captors, who did not identify themselves, said he was in good health, and they proposed to exchange him for Iraqi prisoners held by the US-led occupation forces. The Al Jazeera tape was also aired by CNN.

Maupin and a second soldier, Sergeant Elmer Krause, 40, of Greensboro, North Carolina, have been missing since their military fuel convoy was ambushed on April 9 near Baghdad. They are members of the Army Reserve's 724th Transportation Company based in Illinois.

US soldiers in Iraq are warned regularly that one of the top aims of the insurgents is to capture American troops.

Marine Captain Bruce Frame, a spokesman at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, said the tape had been delivered to the US Embassy in Doha, Qatar, by reporters from Al Jazeera, which is based in the Gulf state.

"We do not know at this point if the person on the tape is Maupin," Frame told Reuters. Frame would not discuss any potential rescue operations and said he was unaware of any specific demands made by the gunmen.

"We will do everything possible to ensure his safe return," said Frame. "However, we will not negotiate with any terrorists or anti-coalition forces."

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at a joint news conference with US President George Bush yesterday that they would stamp out a rebellion launched this month by radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and also win a long-running battle against Sunni guerrillas.

"We stand firm. We will do what it takes to win this struggle," said Blair, Bush's closest ally on Iraq.

April has been Iraq's bloodiest month since Saddam Hussein was ousted a year ago. The US military has lost at least 92 soldiers in combat so far this month -- more than the total killed in the three-week war that toppled Saddam.

"It was never going to be easy," said Blair, also presenting a united front with Bush behind a UN envoy's proposal for a caretaker government in Iraq under a planned US handover of power to Iraqis on June 30.

The United States called on governments to contribute troops to a new military force it is setting up in Iraq to protect UN international staff on their eventual return to the country.

Shi'ite fighters backing Sadr clashed with US troops near Kufa in southern Iraq as the cleric defied US demands that he disband his militia.

Sadr, however, urged the release of foreign hostages not involved in the US-led occupation of Iraq.

Soon afterwards, a Syrian-born Canadian aid worker kidnapped on April 8 was brought to Sadr's office in Najaf and set free.

Fadi Ihsan Fadel told Reuters "at first (the kidnappers) beat me, then they kept moving me to different locations every few hours", and accused him of being a Jewish spy.

The Czech government said three Czech journalists had also been freed "alive, healthy". Three freed Japanese hostages flew from Iraq to Dubai, but two other Japanese remained missing.

A Danish businessman was reported to have probably been seized in Taji, north of Baghdad, and a Jordanian-born businessman travelling on a United Arab Emirates passport was abducted in the southern city of Basra.

At least one hostage, an Italian, has been killed by his kidnappers.

Sadr is holed up in the city of Najaf, near Kufa, with US forces poised outside vowing to kill or capture him.

Blasts shook Kufa, where Sadr preached in the main mosque, and his militiamen ambushed a US convoy outside the town. US officers said one US soldier was wounded and one tank was hit.

"Then they started mortaring our position so we had to retreat," said one Shi'ite fighter, dressed in the black uniform of Sadr's Mehdi Army as smoke rose above Kufa.

Hospital sources said at least five people were killed.

The US military, with 2,500 troops near Najaf, says the Mehdi Army must be disbanded or destroyed, but has allowed Shi'ite clerics and an Iranian envoy to mediate.

Sadr said at Friday prayers he would not disband his militia under any circumstances "because I did not create it on my own but with the cooperation of the Iraqi people".

Any attack in Najaf, home to some of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines, could inflame Iraq's Shi'ite majority whose support is vital to US plans for the country's political future.

Tens of thousands of Shi'ites chanted support for Sadr in his main power base, the Baghdad slum district of Sadr City.

"Rivers of your blood will flow," Sheikh Nasser al-Saedi told the crowd in a warning to US forces not to attack Najaf.

In Iraq's other major flashpoint, Falluja, US troops fought Sunni guerrillas and a hospital official in the city west of Baghdad said 15 people were killed in overnight clashes.

But for the first time a senior civilian and a senior military officer representing the US-led administration in Iraq joined talks to halt the fighting that started on April 5.

"It is our way of showing how serious we are about trying to minimise the bloodshed," said Dan Senor, chief spokesman for the US-led administration.

US Marines began an assault on Falluja after the killing and mutilation of four US private security guards in the city. Doctors say more than 600 Iraqis have died in fighting.

A shaky truce for several days has been interspersed with fighting.

In another dimension to Iraq's security problems, US forces detained about 200 Iraqi paramilitary troops who refused to take part in the Falluja offensive, some Iraqi soldiers said. The US military declined to confirm whether the men were being held. Senior officers play down the significance of such incidents, but have acknowledged a "command failure" occurred during the Falluja offensive.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq