The Arabic al-Jazeera TV channel has broadcast a video purporting to show two German engineers who were kidnapped in Iraq on Tuesday.

The pair appealed to Berlin to work for their release, the station said.

Kidnappers seized Thomas Nitzschke and Rene Braeunlich near an oil refinery compound at Baiji, 180km (110 miles) north of Baghdad.

Baiji has seen much insurgent activity aimed at disrupting oil distribution in recent months.

Dozens of foreign hostages are being held in Iraq, as well as hundreds of Iraqi citizens seized by insurgents and criminal gangs.

Gunmen stood behind the men in the video, in which the captives were seen speaking, but not heard.

Al-Jazeera said the tape was received from a group that calls itself the Ansar al-Tawhid wa al-Sunnah, which did not make any demands through the broadcast.

The men were taken early on Tuesday from the house they were staying in at a detergent plant near the large refinery in Baiji.

Police believe the pair were taken north to Mosul. Road blocks were set up but failed to find the men.

Germany has set up a crisis team to deal with the abduction, but says it has not made contact with the kidnappers.

The kidnap of the two men follows the release of Susanne Osthoff, a German archaeologist abducted in northern Iraq in November.

The German government said media reports that a ransom had been paid to free her might have encouraged the latest kidnapping.

Berlin says it does not pay ransoms to secure the release of hostages.

PHOTO CAPTION

Rene Braeunlich, one of the two German engineers kidnapped in Iraq, working on an oxygene apparatus in Wurzen, eastern Germany, in July 2004. (AFP)

Source: BBC