IRAQ: A US contract worker taken hostage in Iraq this week appealed for his life in a video released yesterday and asked the US to negotiate on his behalf.
The video emerged on a day of violence in Iraq in which at least 14 people were killed in bomb blasts. It coincided with a visit by deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick, the second by a senior US official in as many days.
The video, broadcast by al-Jazeera television, showed a man, identified by the US embassy as Jeffrey Ake from Indiana, sitting behind a desk holding a passport. Militants held assault rifles at his head.
Mr Ake was seized on Monday while working on a reconstruction project near Baghdad.
The hostage "urged the US administration to open a dialogue with the Iraqi resistance . . . to save his life", al-Jazeera said. He also called on US forces to withdraw swiftly from Iraq.
In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said officials were in contact with Mr Ake's family.
Asked if the Bush administration would consider opening a dialogue with insurgents, Mr McClellan said: "Our position is well known when it comes to negotiating . . . "
The footage emerged on a day of violence, with at least four blasts in Baghdad. One struck a US Defence Department convoy as it was leaving Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, killing five Iraqis and wounding four US contract workers.
Another bomb hit a fuel truck, sending a cloud of black smoke over the Iraqi capital. A third hit a convoy on the road to the airport, wounding seven Iraqis.
North of Baghdad, near the oil city of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb blew up as oil industry guards were trying to defuse it. The blast killed nine and wounded four.
Mr Zoellick's trip followed Tuesday's surprise visit by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld.
Both Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Zoellick lauded the progress made in Iraq's transition from authoritarian rule toward democracy, but warned that work was far from over.
The attacks came after a short lull in violence in Baghdad and underscored the security challenges facing newly-elected leaders. They are still deliberating over a government two months after the election.
Mr Zoellick's first stop after Baghdad was Falluja, scene of some of the worst unrest in the country since the US invasion two years ago. He met city leaders and discussed reconstruction after a US offensive last November which left much of the city of 250,000 people in ruins.
The US military hopes to cut troop numbers in Iraq next year but that will depend on the training of Iraqi security forces, which have lost hundreds in bombings and attacks.
Iraqi troops have made progress against the insurgency since the election, with violence appearing to ease somewhat. But millions of Iraqis who defied suicide bombings to vote want to see the new government do more to end the bloodshed.
Vice-president Ghazi Yawar said it was time to put aside the official line that US troops will leave only when Iraqi troops are ready. Discussing a mechanism for their departure when the time is right should begin, he said.
Besides insurgency, Iraq's leaders are struggling to confront rampant crime and an economy largely in ruins. More than 150 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been abducted in the last year.