Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder used Al-Jazeera television today to issue an appeal for the release of a German aid worker and her Iraqi driver who were kidnapped on November 25.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leading German figures today pressed for the release of an aid worker kidnapped in Iraq more than a week ago, while the government continued trying to establish contact with her captors.

German leaders said today they still have had no contact with the kidnappers of a German woman seized in Iraq and Chancellor Angela Merkel said considering paying a ransom was "not up for discussion" at this time.

US AND Iraqi troops launched an operation in western Iraq yesterday to clear insurgents from a suspected safe area used to make car and roadside bombs.

The German woman kidnapped in Iraq last Friday had been working in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul since May and was warned by authorities that her stay there was not safe, a local official said today.

Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed that her government will “not be blackmailed” by those who kidnapped a German archaeologist in Iraq.

FOUR peace activists taken hostage in Iraq were shown in an insurgent video broadcast on Arab television yesterday, with a previously unknown group claiming responsibility for the kidnapping.