Militants say U.S. soldier executed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Arabic television station has broadcast a video tape showing what militants say was the execution of a U.S. soldier, hours after the United States formally handed sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government.
The U.S.-led coalition handed powers to Iraqi leaders on Monday, two days earlier than planned, in an apparent effort to thwart any guerrilla attempt to mark the event with a spectacular attack. The low-key ceremony took many by surprise.
The day passed with no major incident on the streets of a country shaken over recent weeks by bombings and kidnappings. Conservative Arab states welcomed the move.
But video footage broadcast hours after the handover highlighted the security problems facing the government and the U.S.-led forces who remain in the country 14 months after the ouster of president Saddam Hussein.
Al Jazeera television showed film of what a militant commentary said was a U.S. soldier.
A gunman could be seen firing one shot at the soldier, wearing greenish overalls and seen only from the back. The body collapsed into a hole.
U.S. defence officials said the family of Private Keith Matthew Maupin, 20, seized by militants in April, had been told about the existence of the video, but that there was no confirmation Maupin, from Batavia, Ohio was the man killed.
Al Jazeera quoted a statement from a previously unheard of group as saying the soldier was killed because of U.S. policy in Iraq and in revenge for what it described as their "martyrs" in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Algeria.
The group was identified as the Implacable Power Against the Enemy of God and the Prophet.