Four Italians and nine US citizens amoung 40 Iraq hostages

FOUR Italians working as private security guards for a US company in Iraq and nine Americans were among 40 hostages being held in Iraq yesterday.

Al-Jazeera broadcast a video showing four Italians sitting on the floor holding their passports. Behind them were men with machine guns.

Among the nine US citizens missing is a Mississippi man known to have been kidnapped and whose abductors have threatened to kill him.

Earlier on Tuesday, eight employees of a Russian energy company were released unharmed after being seized by masked gunmen who broke into their house in Baghdad. They spent less than a day in captivity, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The Italian foreign ministry said its civilians worked for the US-based DTS Security company and were first reported missing on Monday. The Italian news agency AGI and other reports said the four were taken hostage in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad.

The kidnappers demanded the Italian government and specifically premier Silvio Berlusconi issue an apology for Italy's insult to Islam and Muslims, Al-Jazeera said. They also want Italy, which has 3,000 troops in Iraq, to withdraw.

Italy has been a strong supporter of the US-led military intervention. It did not send combat troops, but sent its contingent to help reconstruction. The Italians are based in the southern town of Nasiriyah.

The abduction of the five Ukrainians and three Russians at their residence on Monday appears to be a new tactic. Past kidnappings have come on roads.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said no one had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and no demands were known to have been made. The men work for an energy company restoring a power plant near Baghdad. The Foreign Ministry said the captives had returned to their residence in Baghdad and none was hurt.

Ukraine has 1,600 troops helping keep security in southern Iraq. Russia has none and opposed the US-led war.

"Abductions of foreign citizens in Iraq have resulted from a sharp escalation of tensions in the country, for the security of which the coalition authorities are now responsible," he said.

The US military said two US soldiers and seven employees of US contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root were missing after their convoy was ambushed on Friday near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.

Only one kidnap victim, Thomas Hamill, a 43-year -old truck driver from Macon, Missouri, has been named so far. His captors have threatened to kill and mutilate him unless US troops ended their assault on Fallujah. The deadline passed on Sunday with no word on his fate.

The Defence Department identified the two missing soldiers as Sgt Elmer C Krause, 40, and Pfc Keith M Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio.

Seven Chinese men abducted in Fallujah were freed late on Monday, the Chinese government said.

A brief Foreign Ministry statement from Beijing said the men were released to an Iraqi religious group who passed them on to diplomats. "Their health and spirits are good," the statement said.

The seven entered Iraq from Jordan on Saturday and were captured the next day, China's Foreign Ministry said.

China has not contributed troops to the US-led military force in Iraq and it was unclear why the seven were there. The official Xinhua News Agency described them as villagers who went to the Middle East on their own.

In Tokyo, optimism faded that three Japanese civilians abducted last week would be released quickly after a government spokesman said authorities were not confident of their safety.

The two aid workers and a photojournalist were being held by a previously unknown group calling itself the Mujahedeen Brigades, which demanded Japan remove its troops from Iraq within three days or it would burn them alive.