A Shiite militant group has released a video of an Iraqi-American soldier who was kidnapped nearly four months ago while visiting his wife in Baghdad, an American television network reported today.

At least eight people were killed by a pair of car bombs that tore through shoppers in central Baghdad today, while a Slovak and Polish soldier were reported killed overnight by a roadside bomb south of the capital.

A US soldier kidnapped last week in Baghdad was married to an Iraqi college student and was with his wife and her family when hooded gunmen took him, a woman claiming to be his mother-in-law said today.