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US soldier kidnapped, Japanese freed

AFP, Baghdad
A 20-year-old US military reservist was paraded as a hostage by insurgents in Iraq as talks resumed Saturday on ways to end the bloodshed in Fallujah, the Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad.
But as Al-Jazeera television broadcast images of Private First Class Keith Matthew Maupin surrounded by masked and armed insurgents, two Japanese hostages were released in Baghdad after three days in captivity.
Sheikh Abdul Salam Kubaissi, a senior member of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, told AFP the two were in "very good health" and had been handed over to the Japanese embassy. Three other Japanese hostages were freed Thursday.
Maupin was shown by the Qatarbased Al-Jazeera sitting on the floor in US military fatigues and a standard-issue floppy hat. He seemed scared and avoided looking at the camera.
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The masked gunmen standing around him have demanded the release of insurgents being held by US-led forces in Iraq.
Maupin was among nine Americans, including another soldier and seven contractors, who went missing after an attack on a convoy near Baghdad airport on April 9 that left one US soldier dead and 12 wounded.
There has been no news of the other missing soldier, Sergeant Elmer C. Krause, 40, but at least one of the civilian contractors -truck driver Thomas Hamill, 43 -- is also believed to be a hostage somewhere in Iraq.
The US-led coalition estimates around 40 foreigners from 12 countries have been abducted as part of a kidnapping campaign designed to break the resolve of coalition partners in Iraq.
Three Czech hostages and one Canadian were freed on Friday but a
Danish citizen was feared abducted as the spate of kidnappings continued.
The hostage takings began during a flare-up of violence this month between US troops and Sunni insurgents in Fallujah and Shia militants in and around the capital.
A coalition official said US forces had been repositioned in the besieged town of Fallujah on Saturday to allow access to the general hospital.
The move came as local leaders started a second day of talks with senior US military commanders and coalition officials at a US marine base there to hammer out a permanent ceasefire after some of the bloodiest clashes in a year left around 600 Iraqis dead, according to hospital sources.