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BAGHDAD, Feb 14 (Reuters) - CNN broadcast on Wednesday what it said was a video showing a U.S.-Iraqi soldier who was kidnapped in Baghdad nearly five months ago. The undated video, posted on a militant Web site, showed Ahmed al-Taie, a 41-year-old linguist, reading a statement. "Proof of life was a condition for continuing dialogue" with the kidnappers, his uncle Entifadh al-Taie told CNN from Washington. "There is no date on this. We don't know if he is in good shape now."

Excerpt - BAGHDAD, Nov 21 (Reuters) - A U.S. air strike in Baghdad's Sadr City district killed at least three people on Tuesday when U.S.-led forces mounted their latest raid in the hunt for death squads and a kidnapped U.S. soldier, Iraqi officials said. ~ snip ~

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte met Friday with Iraq's prime minister in the second visit this week by a top U.S. official. The unannounced meeting comes amid spiraling violence that included seven American deaths and the discovery of 56 bodies in the Iraqi capital bearing signs of torture. The bodies found scattered around Baghdad were of Iraqi men between 20 and 45 years old, and all were apparent victims of sectarian death squads, police said Friday.All wore civilian clothes and had been bound at the wrists and ankles, police Lt. Mohammed Khayon said. He said the...

A kidnapping ring has demanded a $250,000 ransom from the family of the U.S. soldier abducted in Iraq, a suspiciously low sum that his family worries could be a sign that he is no longer alive. The Pentagon Thursday confirmed for the first time that Specialist Ahmed al-Taie, a Michigan National Guardsman assigned to the Provincial Reconstruction Team Baghdad, has been "unaccounted for" since Oct. 23 at 4:30pm; he is currently listed as "duty status whereabouts unknown." Family members of the 41-year-old Iraqi-American from Ann Arbor, Mich. say he was nabbed by a gang claiming to be from the...

The U.S. military identified a kidnapped soldier for the first time on Thursday, saying he was 41-year-old Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie. Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell also confirmed widely published reports that the reserve soldier was visiting his Iraqi wife when he was handcuffed and taken away by gunmen during a visit to the woman's family. The soldier's name first became known after a woman claiming to be his mother-in-law told the story of the interpreter's allegedly secret marriage three months ago and his abduction on Oct. 23. The spokesman said the United States believed the soldier was still in the...