CNN broadcast a video today showing a US-Iraqi soldier who was kidnapped in Baghdad nearly five months ago.
The undated video, posted on a militant website, showed Ahmed al-Taie, a 41-year-old US Army linguist, reading a statement.
The soldier appeared to be in good health and was reading a statement. The sound was muted.
His uncle, Entifadh al-Taie, said he had been talking via e-mail to the kidnappers, who called themselves the Ahlul-Bayt Brigades, and they had made a list of demands, none of them financial.
"I refused to talk to them until they showed proof of life," he said by telephone from Washington.
"The video isn't sufficient because it has no date. But I am willing to talk to them if they contact me."
"He is in great shape. He has lost a little weight, but he is clean and neat."
Mr al-Taie was abducted in the Iraqi capital on October 23rd after leaving the security of the heavily fortified Green Zone that houses the Iraqi government, US embassy and other missions.
His family said he had been taken by Shia militiamen. "It appears from the name of the group holding him that they are Shia," his uncle said.
The US military initially set up checkpoints around Sadr City, the stronghold of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia as part of a huge security sweep to find him.
Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered the checkpoints lifted after residents of the sprawling slum complained of collective punishment.
Mr al-Taie, a reservist deployed to Iraq in November 2005 and attached to a reconstruction team, got married in February 2005. His wife was in Iraq at the time of his kidnapping.