IRAQ - Japan & Australia Face Hostage Crises.

Two of Washington's staunchest allies in Iraq grappled with hostage crises on May 10 as Japan confirmed one of its citizens was missing and a deadline set by the captors of an Australian passed with no word on his fate.

The Kurdish/Salafi-led Army of Ansar Al-Sunna, one of Iraq's most feared insurgent groups, said in an Internet statement it had ambushed a foreign security convoy near a US base in western Iraq and captured a Japanese citizen. A picture of the man's passport posted on the Internet gave his name as Akihiko Saito, aged 44.

Another insurgent group, the Shura Council of the Mujahideen in Iraq, is holding an Australian hostage - 63-year-old engineer Douglas Wood, seized in Baghdad last month. In a video shown on Al-Jazeera TV in the previous week, Wood was shown looking distraught as two masked insurgents pointed rifles at him.

Ansar Al-Sunna did not make any demands, and said video of the Japanese hostage, who works for a British security company, was to be posted soon. Ansar Al-Sunna has killed scores of hostages, including foreigners from countries with no connection to the Iraq war. Last August the group killed 12 Nepalese migrant workers, beheading one and then riddling the others with bullets.

Wood's head had been shaved and he appeared to have a black eye. The insurgents demanded that Australia withdraw its troops within 72 hours - a deadline which expired on May 10. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer later said there had been no word about Wood's fate since the deadline passed, adding: "We haven't heard anything... we just don't know what to think and we are continuing to work on the case. It's too unpredictable. The sense we have is that the people who have taken Douglas Wood are more politically driven. So that makes it hard to know how to handle it".

Both Australia and Japan have troops in Iraq backing up the US military. A new batch of 450 Australian soldiers was due to arrive soon in southern Iraq, taking the total of Australian troops in and around Iraq to about 1,400. Japan has around 550 soldiers in Iraq, mostly in the town of Samawa, a largely symbolic deployment as they are not allowed to take part in combat.

Both Australia and Japan have repeatedly said they will not bow to the demands of kidnappers. Besides Saito, six Japanese have been taken hostage in Iraq. Five were released but Shosei Koda, a backpacker, was beheaded by his captors last year. Japanese Defence Minister Yoshinori Ohno said the kidnapping would not affect the troop deployment. A spokeswoman quoted Ohno as saying: "Under present circumstances, it does not affect activities of the Self-Defence Forces in Samawa. Security there is not particularly worsening".

The Army of Ansar Al-Sunna said it had captured Saito after ambushing a convoy carrying 12 Iraqis and five foreigners near the town of Hit in the rebellious western province of Anbar. It said all those in the convoy except Saito were killed. Japanese media said Saito was a 20-year veteran of the French Foreign Legion and had spent two years in Japan's army. His captors said in their Internet statement: "He has serious injuries and we will soon issue a video showing him".

After kissing their babies and hugging their wives, 200 Japanese soldiers in combat fatigues lined up at a base in central Japan on May 7 under the "Rising Sun" flag for what has become a familiar ritual - the send-off for troops on their way to Iraq. But this batch of soldiers may be among the last. Nearly 18 months into its most ambitious overseas military operation since World War II, Japan is now considering whether to join a growing list of countries pulling out or scaling back their operations in Iraq in the coming months.

A pullout by Japan would be a blow for President Bush, who is struggling to keep such coalition supporters as Italy and Poland on board. Like many coalition partners, however, the troops' fate has presented Tokyo with a difficult dilemma. Despite the strong backing of the deployment by popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, public opinion remains deeply divided over whether the troops should have gone at all.