BERLIN, March 10 (Xinhua) -- German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Saturday that his country will do everything in its power to release the two German hostages kidnapped in Iraq, local reports said.

    A German crisis team was studying the video in which the kidnappers threatened to kill the hostages unless Germany pulls its soldiers out of Afghanistan within 10 days, German news agency DPA reported.

    The video, posted on Saturday on an Islamist website, shows a 61-year-old woman begging for life.

    It was "a distressing document," said Steinmeier.

    The woman, who is married to an Iraqi professor, was kidnapped along with her son in Baghdad early last month.

    It is the third abduction of Germans in Iraq even though Germany vigorously opposed the U.S.-led war in 2003.