“We wanted to negotiate the release of the Somali policewomen but unfortunately they were beheaded.”
The jihad group could have released these captives via negotiations, but it was also within Islamic law for the jihadis to murder them: “As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, ‘When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks’ (Qur’an sura 47, verse 4)” — Al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah (The Laws of Islamic Governance).
“Somali al Shabaab militants behead two policewomen,” Reuters, December 10, 2014 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):
(Reuters) – Al Shabaab militants have beheaded two Somali policewomen, prompting a policeman to kill five women linked to the group who were being held for a possible swap of captives, an official said on Wednesday.
The policeman killed the women – all wives of rebels from the Somali Islamist group – after discovering the dead bodies of his policewoman wife and her colleague, Tayeglow district commissioner Mohamed Abdallah told Reuters.
“We wanted to negotiate the release of the Somali policewomen but unfortunately they were beheaded,” he said.
The policewomen’s bodies were found in the morning after they were abducted from their houses by rebels overnight.
The government side wanted to exchange the five captive women for the two policewomen, said the district commissioner….