BAGHDAD, Sept 9 (AFP) - Two young Italian women were kidnapped in central Baghdad this week, a new development in the hostage crisis that has plagued Iraq for months.
Around 20 foreign hostages have been killed by their captors.
Here is the list of foreigners held captive or missing in Iraq:
ITALY: Italian aid workers Simona Toretta and Simona Pari, both aged 29, were kidnapped on September 7 from their offices in central Baghdad, along with two Iraqi aid workers. The Italians and one of the Iraqis work for Italian aid agency Un Ponte Per Baghdad (A Bridge to Baghdad).
FRANCE: French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were kidnapped on August 20 along with their Syrian driver, Mohammed al-Jundi, by the Islamic Army in Iraq.
The group, which also claimed responsibility for the killing of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, called on the French government to repeal a law banning the Islamic headscarf and other obvious religious signs in state schools. France refused.
TURKEY: Several thousand Turkish truck drivers work in Iraq, and many of them have been taken captive since the first kidnappings in April. Most have been freed.
At least two drivers are still being held. Tahsin Top, kidnapped on August 7, whose wife on September 8 said that the group holding her husband, the Abdel Qader al Gilani Brigade, had demanded a 45,000-dollar ransom.
The other, Aytullah Gezmen, went missing in July along with a colleague, Murat Yuce, who was executed by his captors, the Tawhid wa al-Jihad (Unification and Holy War) group affiliated to suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. A video released on August 2 showed the execution, the first of a Turk in Iraq.
On September 2 Zarqawi's group said that it had killed three other Turkish drivers, as the bodies of three Turks were found on the roadside north of Baghdad.
SYRIA: At least two Syrians are being held in Iraq, Mohammed al-Jundi, who was seized along with the two missing French journalists on August 20, and Hassan Awaad Mohammed, a truck driver taken captive on August 14 near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
JORDAN: The Jordanian foreign ministry confirmed on August 24 that Jordanian national Nidal Taleb Kanani had been taken captive in Iraq, after a statement on an Islamist website said he had been kidnapped. The group wants 10,000 dollars ransom for Kanani.
Amman has negotiated the release of eight Jordanian nationals taken hostage in July and August.
UNITED STATES: US soldier Private Keith Maupin, 20, went missing during an attack on a convoy near Baghdad on April 9. He was paraded on Al-Jazeera television and his kidnappers demanded the release of insurgents taken prisoner by US-led forces.
Two American employees of the Halliburton firm and its oil subsidiary, KBR, Timothy Bell and William Bradley, also remain missing following the same attack.
In June, Al-Jazeera television said it had received a statement from a group announcing the killing of Maupin and a video showing the hostage speaking.
The footage then shows a man kneeling facing a ditch who is then shot, although his face remains unseen. Washington says the film is "inconclusive".
CANADA: A Canadian of Iraqi origin, Rifaat Mohammad Rifaat, 41, an employee of a Saudi Arabian company renovating Abu Ghraib prison was taken hostage early April.
IRAN: Iranian diplomat Fereydun Jahani went missing on August 4 on the road from Baghdad to the Shiite pilgrimage city of Karbala, where Tehran was set to open a consulate.
The Islamic Army of Iraq, who claim to be holding the diplomat, said they would "punish" him if Iran did not release 500 Iraqi prisoners taken during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
The group gave a 48-hour deadline for their demands to be satisfied in mid-August, and there has been no official news since. However, Tehran has several times said that Jahani is in good health, without saying where they got their information from.