Captured US soldier put on show

Iraq’s top Shiite cleric warned coalition forces against entering the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf to capture a radical cleric wanted for murder as US troops and Shiite militiamen fought in the south. Thirteen Iraqis died in clashes in the north and south.

Videotape broadcast yesterday showed a captive US soldier flanked by masked gunmen with automatic rifles, the first US serviceman confirmed kidnapped in Iraq since the declared end of war.

Two dozen foreigners have been abducted in the past week amid the worst violence Iraq has seen since the US-led invasion on March 20, 2003. At least 17 foreigners remained unaccounted today, according to an Associated Press tally. US military officials have reported capturing more than 80 insurgents in fighting since April 1.

In Fallujah, west of the capital, Iraqis and US officials held their first direct negotiations aimed at stemming the bloody violence in the besieged city.

In Najaf, a top US general said 2,500 US troops deployed on the edge of the southern city would not yet move in to seize the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. Negotiations were under way to find a compromise to avert an attack on Najaf that could spark outrage among Iraq’s Shiite majority.

Al-Sadr took a defiant tone, preaching to worshippers while wearing a coffin shroud – symbolising his willingness to die – and warning that negotiations aimed at preventing an attack on the holiest Shiite city were nearing collapse.

“I am ready to meet martyrdom for the sake of Iraq,” he said in a Friday prayer sermon.

But al-Sadr is under heavy pressure from Iraq’s most influential cleric, the more moderate Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, to compromise

The negotiations in Fallujah bore some progress. US mediators were pressing Fallujah leaders to get insurgents in the city to abide by a cease-fire that has been rocked by nightly battles with US Marines. The US military, in turn, agreed to reposition troops to give residents better access to the hospital.

But the top civilian negotiator warned that time was running short for talks.

“I must be candid ... time is limited,” US Ambassador Richard Jones said. “We cannot just sit and allow the situation to continue the way it is.”

Even as negotiators were trying to get gunmen to stop firing, US Marines on the front-lines were challenging them to fight. Cars went through streets blaring heavy metal music and insulting insurgents in what marines said was an attempt to goad them into attacking.

On Thursday, a warplane dropped a 2,000lb bomb on a building insurgents were seen moving in and out of, blowing a huge blast of dust for yards.

In other violence, insurgents fired mortars at an Iraqi police station and at a US base but missed their targets, killing eight Iraqi civilians in the northern city of Mosul, US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters. Seventeen Iraqis were also wounded in the attacks on Thursday night.

In fighting yesterday along the Euphrates River near Kufa not far from Najaf, US troops fought with al-Sadr’s Shiite militia. Large explosions were seen by the river in a sparsely populated area on Kufa’s edge.

Militiamen attacked a US convoy carrying the top commander of the US force, wounding one soldier and damaging a tank with a rocket-propelled grenade. Five people were killed in the ensuing battle. US military spokesman Captain Issam Bornales said all five were insurgents, but witnesses said at least two were civilians caught in the crossfire.

Videotape broadcast yesterday by the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera showed a tense and frightened US soldier held captive by masked gunmen who said they want to trade him for comrades imprisoned by the coalition.

“My name is Keith Matthew Maupin. I am a soldier from the 1st Division,” the soldier says in the footage. “I am married with a 10-month-old child. I came to liberate Iraq, but I did not come willingly because I wanted to stay with my child.”

During the video, one of the gunmen was heard saying: “We are keeping him to be exchanged for some of the prisoners captured by the occupation forces.

“Some of our groups managed to capture one of the American soldiers, and he is one of many others. He is being treated according to the treatment of prisoners in the Islamic religion and he is in good health,”

Maupin, 20, and another US soldier, as well as seven American civilians, were listed as missing after their convoy was attacked on April 9 outside Baghdad.

Earlier yesterday, three Czech journalists and a Syrian-Canadian aid worker were freed by their captorsall said they were in good health. The Czechs had been missing since Sunday after checking out of their hotel to leave for Jordan by taxi.

A man from the United Arab Emirates and a Danish businessman also were reported kidnapped.

A Chinese citizen was released yesterday, two days after being taken captive, said Muthanna Harith, a member of the Islamic Clerics Committee, the highest Sunni organisation in Iraq.

The clerics’ committee also helped free three Japanese hostages on Thursday, the same day an Italian security guard was executed by his captors.

In Najaf, Iraqi politicians were mediating talks between al-Sadr and the Americans, trying to get the cleric to back down in hopes of averting a US attack on Iraq’s holiest Shiite city.

An al-Sadr spokesman said yesterday that negotiations were close to collapse and blamed the Americans, who apparently were insisting on the cleric’s surrender.

“I believe that the mediation will not continue for a long. They will reach a dead end today or tomorrow. There are no results from these negotiations and these negotiations could collapse,” said Sheik Fuad al-Tarafi.