Al Jazeera television has aired a video tape from an Iraqi militant group showing US hostage Jill Carroll and said she appealed for fellow Americans to press for the release of Iraqi women held by US-led forces.
Carroll, wearing a headscarf, was seen crying in the grainy footage that carried a Jan. 28 datestamp and a logo showing the name of the Revenge Brigades militant group. The voice of the 28-year-old journalist kidnapped on Jan. 7, was not heard.
"The American journalist kidnapped in Iraq urged her family and Americans around the world to demand that U.S. military forces and the Iraqi interior (ministry) release all Iraqi women prisoners," said the Qatar-based television station.
"She said that this would help in her release," the station said without giving further details.
Carroll's kidnappers set a 72-hour ultimatum which expired about 10 days ago for the US military to free women prisoners in Iraq threatening to kill her.
The US military in Iraq freed five women prisoners last week, but U.S. and Iraqi officials said their release was pre-planned and not linked to Carroll's case.
More than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been abducted in the anarchy that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Most foreign hostages have been released, but 54 are known to have been killed; more than 50 are still believed to be held.