Baghdad: Arabic news network Al-Jazeera has broadcasted footage of US soldier held hostage by Iraqi insurgents.

"My name is Keith Matthew Maupin," the soldier was shown saying yesterday (Apr 16, 2004) while sitting on the floor, surrounded by masked armed gunmen.

The soldier, wearing a desert camouflage uniform and floppy hat, said that he was married and had a 10-month child.

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.

"The Mujahedeen (Muslim fighters) have detained an American soldier ... and he is being treated as a prisoner, in line with Islamic religion and he is in good health," said the speaker.

"We are keeping him to exchange him for some of our detainees," he said.

A US Central Command official in Doha said that the command was studying videotape showing a man who identifies himself as one of the two soldiers missing since an attack on a convoy West of Baghdad last week.

"We received tape from the al-Jazeera network," Captain Bruce Frame said from Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida. "They gave it to US Embassy personnel in Doha, who then gave it to military in Doha.