Rebels execute US soldier

Iraqi militants have released footage of what they claim is the execution of an American soldier.

Grainy images apparently showing Specialist Keith "Matt" Maupin, 20, as he was shot in the back of the head were released to the al-Jazeera television station.

According to the Arab TV station a previously unknown group, calling itself "The Sharp Sword against the Enemies of God and His Prophet", carried out the murder in response to the US refusal to change its policy in Iraq.

It is not known when the execution took place but the footage was released after coalition forces transferred power to the new interim government in Iraq yesterday.

The film shows a blindfolded man, identified as Maupin by a statement issued with the tape, sitting on the ground in green overalls.

Al-Jazeera said the next scene shows gunmen shooting the man in the back of the head and his body then slumps into a hole dug in the ground in front of him. The station did not air the film. Major Willie Harris, a US Army spokesman, said the man in the video could not be clearly identified but that Maupin's family had been told of the footage.

"There is no confirmation at this time that the tape contains footage of Matt Maupin or any other Army soldier," he said. The tape is being analysed in an attempt to confirm the victim's identity.

Maupin, from Batavia, Ohio, joined the Army Reserves to fund a university course in aerospace engineering but was deployed to Iraq earlier this year.

His parents, Carolyn and Keith, have yet to respond to news of the footage. It is believed their younger son, Michael, is a serving marine.

Maupin was among nine Americans, seven of them contractors, who disappeared after an ambush on a convoy west of Baghdad on 9 April.

He was assigned to the Army Reserve's 724th Transportation Company and appeared days after the attack in a video showing him sitting on the ground in front of armed militants.

The bodies of four civilian employees captured with him, from US Army supply firm Kellogg Brown & Root, were later found in a shallow grave. The body of Sergeant Elmer Krause was discovered shortly afterwards. A civilian driver, Thomas Hamill, escaped a month later but the remaining two men are still missing.

Maupin's abduction came amid a wave of kidnappings in which dozens of foreigners were snatched. Most were freed, though an Italian and a Lebanese man were killed.

More recent kidnappings have become increasingly gruesome with the beheadings of American Nicholas Berg last month and South Korean Kim Sun-il last week.

Five hostages - three Turks, a Pakistani and US marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun - are currently under threat of decapitation. Cpl Hassoun, a 24-year-old Arabic speaker of Lebanese descent, was shown blindfolded with a sword brandished over his head in a videotape aired on al-Jazeera on Sunday.

The militants threatened to behead him unless all Iraqis "in occupation jails" are freed. Today his father, Ali Hassoun, said: "I appeal to the kidnappers and to their conscience and faith to release my son. He is not a fighter. I hope that they will respond favourably to my appeal."

Other kidnappers have threatened to behead Pakistani driver, Amjad Hafeez, by tomorrow and three Turks by the end of today.