Japan has yet to confirm citizen's abduction in Iraq

The Japanese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it has yet to confirm the report that a Japanese national was taken hostage in Iraq on Monday, reported Kyodo News.

It quoted a senior ministry official as saying that the ministry cannot confirm if the citizen, Akihiko Saito, has been hurt.

An Iraqi militant group linked to the al-Qaida terror network said on Monday that it had kidnapped a Japanese after killing four other foreign contractors.

In a statement posted on the Internet, the Ansar al-Sunna Army identified the hostage as an operation manager working with a security company in Iraq.

Photocopies of two of his documents were displayed on the website.

The group claimed that its members had ambushed a convoy carrying Saito and four other foreign contractors along with 12 Iraqi security guards near Hit, 170 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.

A total of six Japanese hostages were taken by Iraqi militants last year in three separate incidents. The kidnappers beheaded one after the Japanese government failed to commit to pulling out its Self-Defense Forces in Iraq.