More glorification of death in the name of jihad. From Reuters:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A militant group headed by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said on Monday it had beheaded an American hostage and posted a video of the killing on the Internet.
The video, on an Islamist site, identified the hostage as Eugene Armstrong and showed a masked man sawing his head off with a knife.
The video showed the banner of Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad group, which said it had kidnapped the hostage along with another American and a Briton in central Baghdad last Thursday.
The video was the first word on the three men since a 48-hour execution deadline set by the group on Saturday expired earlier in the day.
Tawhid and Jihad said in footage posted on the Internet on Saturday it would kill the three men unless Iraqi women were freed from Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr jails in 48 hours.
The families of Americans Armstrong and Jack Hensley and Briton Kenneth Bigley have appealed for their release. The men were seized from their house in an upscale neighborhood of Baghdad on Thursday by a group of gunmen.
The U.S. military says no women are being held in the two prisons specified, but that two are in U.S. custody. Dubbed “Dr Germ” and “Mrs Anthrax” by U.S. forces, they are accused of working on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs and are in a prison for high-profile detainees.
Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad group has claimed responsibility for most of the bloodiest suicide bomb attacks in Iraq since the fall of Saddam. It has already beheaded several hostages, including U.S. telecoms engineer Nicholas Berg in May and South Korean driver Kim Sun-il in June.