Al-Jazeera television aired a videotape Friday showing two German engineers kidnapped earlier this week in northern Iraq, and the TV station said they appealed to the German government to work for their release.
The two Germans were shown seated on the ground with at least four gunmen behind them. The tape was dated Jan. 24, the day they were nabbed in the northern industrial city of Beiji.
The hostages were employed by a German firm in from which has a commercial relationship with an Iraqi government-owned detergent company in Beiji.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military freed five Iraqi women detainees Thursday in a bid to secure the release of abducted American journalist Jill Carroll.
