The soldier identified himself as Keith Matthew Maupin

BAGHDAD, April 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Al-Jazeera television broadcast late Friday, April 16, a videotape showing a U.S. soldier held prisoner by Iraqi resistance fighters, who offered trading him for prisoners in the hands of occupation forces.

"My name is Keith Matthew Maupin," the soldier said while sitting on the floor, surrounded by masked armed fighters, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The family of the soldier has confirmed his identity, reported The New York Times.

Wearing a desert camouflage uniform and floppy hat, the American soldier said he was married and father to a 10-month child.

One of the fighters said the prisoner is being treated "in line with Islam and he is in good health".

"We are keeping him to exchange him for some of our detainees," held by the U.S.-led occupation forces, he added.

In the video, the young soldier seemed to be constantly looking at the ground and away from the camera.

The translator then said the soldier had come to Iraq to "liberate" it, and did not wish to be there as he preferred staying with his child.

A U.S. Central Command official said Aljazeera gave the tape to U.S. embassy personnel in the Qatari capital and is being analyzed, adding the man on the tape might have been one of two missing soldiers.

Captain Bruce Frame told AFP that the pair have been unaccounted for since the attack on a fuel convoy last week near Fallujah.

No mention was made of the other missing U.S. soldier, Sgt. Elmer C. Krause, 40, of Greensboro, N.C.

Maupin and the other missing soldier are assigned to the Army Reserve's 724th Transportation Company.

Seven U.S. employees of Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of the energy and oil services giant Halliburton, also went missing in the resistance attack.

‘Pretty Shook Up’

The two Japanese citizens released by the Iraqi resistance

Marjorie Stultz, a friend of Maupin’s family, said Maupin's mother was "pretty shook up".

"We're all rallying around her," Stultz, whose grandson just returned from Iraq, told the Washington Post.

There was a candlelight vigil Thursday night, April 15, at Glen Este High School in Cincinnati, where Maupin was a student.

Maupin "was a great kid, and he comes from a great family", said the principal, Dennis Ashworth.

"All of us here -- the staff, the students -- are extremely concerned about his well-being".

Hostages Released

Meanwhile, two Japanese held hostage by Iraqi resistance fighters were released Friday, Sheikh Abdul Salam Al-Kubaissi, an official at the Sunni Muslim Scholars Association, told AFP.

"The two were released, they are next to me, " he said. "They are in very good health."

Kubaissi said a representative from the Japanese embassy was present at the headquarters of the association at the Umm Al-Qura mosque in west Baghdad.

"The representative of the Japanese embassy is here and we are handing over the two hostages," he said.

Freelance journalist Junpei Yasuda, 30, and peace activist Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, disappeared Wednesday, April 14.

The release came as Japan prepared to welcome home three other citizens who were released Thursday, April 15, after spending a harrowing week near the flashpoint town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

Unwilling to give updates, the U.S.-led occupation has said about 40 foreigners from at least 12 countries had been held by Iraqi militias in the last two weeks as part of a new strategy that has caused further divisions among the United States and its allies over Iraq.

Two businessmen, from Denmark and the United Arab Emirates, were the latest to be taken hostage, while three Czech journalists, a Syrian Canadian aid worker and a Chinese laborer -- all of them captured this month -- were released.

Also on Friday, some 118 workers from Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics were evacuated from the occupied country.

Iraqi fighters executed one of four Italian security guards and threatened to kill the rest unless Italy withdrew its troops from Iraq.