DOHA, Aug 18 (AFP) - An armed group in Iraq has threatened to kill a kidnapped American journalist unless US forces withdraw from the Shiite holy city of Najaf within 48 hours, Al-Jazeera television reported Wednesday, showing a video.
"An armed group calling itself 'Martyrs Squad' has announced that it is holding American journalist Micah Garen ... and threatened to kill the hostage after 48 hours if US forces do not withdraw from the city of Najaf," it said.
The news channel aired a video in which the presumed hostage is shown with five hooded gunmen in the background, one of whom is reading a statement. However, the gunman is not heard speaking.
Najaf has been the site of a showdown between radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and US and US-backed Iraqi forces.
The US State Department said earlier Wednesday it was without news of Garen, who was kidnapped in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah last weekend.
Garen, 36, founder of Four Corners Media of New York and Colorado, a company that produces documentary videos, photos and text, was abducted Saturday along with his Iraqi interpreter, Amir Doshe, in a Nasiriyah marketplace.
In the days prior to the abduction, Garen had been investigating the destruction of an ambulance by Italian troops, and the death of the vehicle's passengers, according to his message exchanges with friends and a press rights group.