U.S. Hostage Apparently Beheaded
A video posted on an Islamic Web site Monday shows the apparent beheading of a man identified in the tape as American construction contractor Eugene Armstrong.
The killing was purportedly carried out personally by key terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In Washington, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Armstrong's body had been recovered, but the official would provide no information about where or when it had been recovered.
The official also would not comment on the video's authenticity.
The voce of the militant reading the statement on the 9-minute tape could not be verified, but it sounded like past recordings said to be of al-Zarqawi.
The Tawhid and Jihad group, led by al-Zarqawi, had threatened to behead Armstrong, fellow American Jack Hensley and Briton Kenneth Bigley unless Iraqi women were released by Monday from two U.S.-controlled prisons in Iraq.
The speaker on the tape warned the other two hostages would be killed in 24 hours unless all Muslim women prisoners were released.
More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq, some for lucrative ransoms, and at least 26 have been executed. At least five other Westerners are currently being held hostage here, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters.
In other developments:
The video shows five militants dressed in black stood behind the man, who was identified after an earlier video announcing their abduction as Armstrong. Four of the militants were armed. A Tawhid and Jihad banner hung on the wall behind them. The man in the center read out a statement, then appeared to pull a knife, rush to the hostage from behind and cut his throat until the head was severed.
The victim, blindfolded and wearing an orange jumpsuit, gasped loudly as blood poured from his neck. His killer held up the head at one point, and placed the head on top of the body.
During the statement before the killing, the speaker said Tawhid and Jihad was taking revenge for women Iraqi prisoners and called U.S. President George W. Bush "a dog."
"You, sister, rejoice. God's soldiers are coming to get you out of your chains and restore your purity by returning you to your mother and father."
Addressing U.S. President George W. Bush, he said: ``Now, you have people who love death just like you love life. Killing for the sake of God is their best wish, getting to your soldiers and allies are their happiest moments, and cutting the heads of the criminal infidels is implementing the orders of our lord.''
Another Sunni group — Ansar al-Sunna — posted a grisly videotape on the Internet over the weekend purporting to show militants beheading three Iraqi Kurd hostages accused of transporting military vehicles to a base in Taji, just north of Baghdad. The decapitated bodies were found on a road near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, said Sarkawt Hassan, security chief in the Kurdish town of Sulaimaniyah.
In other violence in Iraq, gunmen killed a Muslim cleric who was entering a mosque in Baghdad to perform noon prayers Monday — the second attack on a cleric belonging to an influential association of Sunni clerics in as many days — the group said.
The two clerics belonged to the Association of Muslim Scholars, a grouping of conservative clerics that opposes the U.S. presence in Iraq and has emerged as a powerful representative of Iraq's Sunni minority.
Sheik Mohammed Jadoa al-Janabi, was killed in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite al-Baya neighborhood. He was unarmed and had no security guards, said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Late Sunday, another member of the association, Sheik Hazem al-Zeidi, was kidnapped and killed as he left a mosque in Baghdad's Sadr City district. Two bodyguards were also taken hostage and later released, according to Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abdul-Jabbar, a senior member of the group.
No one claimed responsibility for the killings, and there have been no arrests.
Elsewhere, insurgents fired on a U.S. patrol with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades Monday, killing one American soldier, the U.S. military said. The soldier, who was serving with the Army's 1st Infantry Division, was killed near Ash Sharqat, 168 miles north of Baghdad, a military statement said. At least 1,029 Americans have been killed in Iraq.
Insurgents have used kidnappings and spectacular bombings as their weapons of choice in a 17-month campaign to undermine the interim government and force the United States and its allies out of Iraq.
Tawhid and Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for a series of bombings and hostage takings, had demanded the release of Iraqi women from Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons.
Abu Ghraib is the prison where U.S. soldiers were photographed sexually humiliating male prisoners. The U.S. military says no women are held at either facility, though it says it is holding two female "security prisoners" elsewhere.
Despite the unrelenting violence, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Sunday that his interim government is determined "to stick to the timetable of the elections," which are due by Jan. 31.
Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned there could not be "credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now."