A little-known militant group says it has kidnapped a Polish woman in Iraq and demanded Poland withdraw its forces, Al-Jazeera television tonight.
Warsaw immediately rejected the request.
"Of course there is no question of negotiating with the terrorists about the withdrawal of troops or about any other issues," Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka told a news conference after a meeting of the cabinet's crisis staff.
Al-Jazeera aired a video of an elderly-looking, unnamed woman seated between two masked men dressed in black, one pointing a gun to her head. The hostage, dressed in a polka dot outfit, looked upset.
"I am asking for the help of the Polish government and for the withdrawal of Polish troops from Iraq and for the release of Iraqi women prisoners from Abu Ghraib jail," an Al-Jazeera staffer quoted the hostage as saying in halting Arabic on the tape. He said she then spoke in Polish.
Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz did not name the hostage but said she had been identified as a woman who has lived in Iraq for several dozen years and was married to an Iraqi man. In the early 1990s she worked at Poland's embassy in Iraq for a year.
The video showed a black banner with the name of the group - Abu Bakr al-Seddiq al-Salafiya Brigades - named the first Muslim caliph after the Prophet Mohammad.
"The Polish hostage worked for American forces. She will be released as soon as Polish troops withdraw from Iraq and after the release of all Iraqi women prisoners," one of the militants read out from a statement, in a later broadcast of the video.
Mr Cimoszewicz said he could not confirm if the hostage worked for US forces in Iraq.
Washington says it holds only two women in Iraq, both top weapons scientists from the days of Saddam Hussein.
Poland, seen by the US as a key ally in Iraq, has 2,500 soldiers in the south-central part of Iraq, and commands a multinational division of 8,000 troops.