TOKYO - Japan does not have information of any of its soldiers going missing in Iraq but a purported hostage there may have been a contractor working for the US Defense Department, Kyodo News said Tuesday.
An Al-Qaeda-linked militant group said it had seized a Japanese hostage during a "fierce battle" in western Iraq, in a statement posted on an Islamist website Monday.
Identity card photographs accompanying the statement from the Army of Ansar al-Sunna gave the hostage's name as Akihiko Saito, 44.
Kyodo News said that a Cyprian security firm had confirmed that a man with the same name was on its payroll.
The Japanese foreign ministry said it could not immediately confirm if any Japanese was taken hostage in Iraq.
"We are checking the report through various sources but we do not have anything that could back it up so far," a spokesman for the ministry said early Tuesday.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, visiting Moscow for World War II anniversary ceremonies, has been informed of the incident, the public broadcaster NHK said.
Kyodo News said the Japanese Defense Agency knew of none of its soldiers missing in Samawa, where some 600 Japanese troops are based.
But the news agency said the alleged hostage may be working for the Pentagon as a security guard, while adding that the US Defense Department had yet to confirm that.
Japanese forces are on a historic mission to Iraq as it is the first time since World War II that Tokyo has deployed the military to a country where there is active fighting.
The Japanese forces have suffered no casualties, although in October an Al-Qaeda-linked group kidnapped and beheaded a 24-year-old Japanese backpacker, Shosei Koda.
05/09/2005 17:45 GMT