Grainy video of a frightened-looking 20-year-old American soldier, wearing camouflage, a floppy hat and surrounded by five masked men, was aired Friday on the Arab television station Al Jazeera.
“My name is Keith Matthew Maupin. I am a soldier from the 1st Division,” he said into the camera. “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.”
The Pentagon worked late Friday to confirm that the captured soldier was Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio, one of two soldiers listed as missing after their convoy was attacked April 9 outside Baghdad during a spate of kidnappings.
The other missing soldier is Sgt. Elmer C. Krause, 40, of Greensboro, N.C. Both were assigned to the Army Reserve’s 724th Transportation Company, based in Bartonville, Ill.
Seven civilians, all employees of American contractor KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, also were reported missing after the convoy attack.
The man who identified himself as Maupin appeared scared and glanced down occasionally during the taping. The gunmen, their faces covered by kaffiyehs, stood behind the soldier. According to Al Jazeera, one gunman said they were keeping Maupin to be exchanged for prisoners captured by U.S. forces. He said Maupin was being treated well. There was no mention of Krause.
Earlier, three Czech journalists and a Syrian-Canadian aid worker were released by their captors, and two others, a Danish businessman and a man from the United Arab Emirates, were reported missing.
In Fallujah, U.S. officials met for the first time with leaders from the besieged city. The American negotiators’ names were not released for security reasons.
Separately, The Associated Press reported that the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency has complained that some Iraqi nuclear facilities are being looted, with radioactive materials being transported out of the country.
The International Atomic Energy Agency sent a letter to U.S. officials three weeks ago informing them of the findings, the AP reported. According to a letter sent to the UN Security Council by the agency’s director, Mohamed ElBaradei, satellite imagery shows “extensive removal of equipment and in some instances, removal of entire buildings” from these sites.
