IRAQ Video shows executions of men

The deadline for the beheading of a Japanese hostage is approaching.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A grisly video released today showed militants killing 11 Iraqi troops held hostage for days, beheading one, then shooting the others execution-style. Another group released a video of a kidnapped Polish woman, demanding the withdrawal of Polish troops from Iraq.
The latest kidnapping dramas came as the deadline wound down for a Japanese hostage who was shown in a video aired Tuesday. His captors -- said to be the Al-Qaida-linked militant group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- threatened to behead him in 48 hours unless Japan withdraws its troops from Iraq -- a demand rejected by Tokyo.
New violence
In new violence today, a car bomb exploded in southern Baghdad, killing a U.S. soldier and at least one Iraqi civilian and wounding two other American soldiers, the U.S. military said. Another U.S. soldier was killed when insurgents attacked his patrol south of Balad, about 40 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.
At least 1,110 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The killings of the 11 Iraqi National Guardsmen were claimed by a group called the Ansar al-Sunnah Army.
In the video posted on the group's Web site, each man is seen reading out his name and his unit. One man was then forced to the floor, and a militant pulled his head by the hair and cut off his head. A gunman then shot the others one by one as they knelt on the ground, their arms bound. Some of the men cringed as they heard the shots. The gunman then emptied a full clip into the bodies.
Insurgents have regularly targeted Iraqi security forces, blaming them for working with Americans. On Saturday, insurgents ambushed and killed 50 unarmed Iraqi soldiers as they headed home from a U.S. training camp northeast of Baghdad.
A voiceover on today's video -- identified as that of the "Emir al-Jamaa," or head of the group -- addressed all members of Iraq's security forces. "Repent to God ... abandon your weapons and go home and beware of supporting the apostate Crusaders or their followers, the Iraqi government, or else you will only find death," it said.
Statement on site
A statement on the Web site, "We will not forget about the blood of our elderly, women and children that are shed daily in Fallujah, Samarra, Ramadi and elsewhere on your hands and the hands of those you work with."
It said the 11 slain men were "responsible for guarding the Crusader American troops in the Radwaniya area" in Baghdad.
The Ansar al-Sunnah Army announced Tuesday that it had captured the men, showing their photos on its Web site. The movement has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks and hostage takings, including the slaying of 12 Nepalese hostages.
The unidentified Pole was the latest foreign woman to be abducted in Iraq. Margaret Hassan, the British-Iraqi-Irish head of CARE International in Iraq, was snatched from her car last week and in a video aired Wednesday night was seen pleading for the withdrawal of British troops and the release of Iraqi women prisoners.
The video today of the Polish hostage, aired on Al-Jazeera television, showed a middle-aged woman with gray hair and dressed in a polka-dotted blouse sitting in front of two masked gunmen, one of whom was pointing a pistol at her head.
The kidnappers, who called themselves the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Fundamentalist Brigades, said the woman, who was not identified by name, was a Polish citizen working with U.S. troops in Iraq.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said the woman, a longtime resident with Iraqi citizenship, was believed to have been abducted Wednesday night from her home in Baghdad. Abdul-Rahman did not release her name.
Background of hostage
In Warsaw, Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said the woman was a Polish citizen who is married to an Iraqi and who worked at the Polish Embassy in Baghdad in the 1990s. Polish officials refused to release her name, citing security concerns.
The woman's voice was not audible on the tape, but Al-Jazeera said she urged Polish troops to leave the country and for U.S. and Iraqi authorities to release all female detainees from the Abu Ghraib prison. Ahmed al-Sheikh, Al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief, said the kidnappers did not mention a specific death threat or give a deadline.
Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said the Polish government would not give in to the kidnappers' demands. Poland commands some 6,000 troops from 15 nations -- including some 2,400 from Poland -- in the Babil, Karbala and Wasit provinces south of Baghdad.
Several groups of hostage-takers have demanded the release of women prisoners in Iraq -- most notably, al-Zarqawi's group in the abduction of two Americans and a Briton last month. All three men were beheaded.
Al-Zarqawi's group, Al-Qaida in Iraq, said it was holding Shosei Koda, a 24-year-old Japanese tourist who appeared in a video Tuesday saying he would be beheaded in 48 hours unless Japan pulled out of Iraq. No specific time for the deadline's end today was given.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has rejected the demand, said his government was "calling on other countries and those who are sympathetic to Japan, and the Iraqi people" to help.
"Mr. Koda is ... just an ordinary, curious young man, and we are really hoping for his release," Koizumi said.
Koda, who left Japan in January for a yearlong trip starting in New Zealand, told people he met traveling that he wanted to go to Iraq to see the country.
Missing explosives
Meanwhile, a separate armed group calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades, Al-Karar Brigade, said it obtained a "huge amount of the explosives" that are missing from the Al-Qaqaa weapons installation south of Baghdad. It threatened to use the weapons if U.S.-Iraqi forces attack insurgent strongholds in central Iraq. The claim couldn't be independently verified.
In other developments today:
* U.S. aircraft bombed a suspected rebel safe house in Fallujah, killing two people, hospital officials said. The overnight strike in the northern part of the city targeted a "meeting site" used by suspected al-Zarqawi allies, the U.S. military said in a prepared statement.
* Insurgents clashed with U.S. forces in the restive central Iraq town of Ramadi, leaving two people dead and four wounded, according to the U.S. military and hospital officials. Marines detained some individuals, the military said.
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