Mercy is not a tool in their box. From The Sunday Times:
UP TO 20 people suspected of taking part in an operation to free the British hostage Ken Bigley have been murdered in a purge of the terrorist group headed by Iraq’s most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it was claimed yesterday.
A senior Iraqi resistance source in al-Zarqawi’s stronghold of Falluja said two Syrian guards had helped the 62-year-old Liverpool-born engineer to escape after he was held at a mosque on the edge of the city.
Their car was halted for routine checks by insurgents with links to al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad group before they could reach the safety of an area under American control.
According to the resistance source the Iraqis recognised Bigley, who was disguised in Arab dress.
Al-Zarqawi is said to have been incensed that his group had been compromised and ordered the insurgents to behead Bigley.
Instructions were given that the murder should be filmed and presented to resemble as closely as possible the beheadings of Bigley”s American companions, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley, who had been abducted with him in Baghdad three weeks earlier.
The Syrian guards were handed over to senior Tawhid and Jihad members for further interrogation and were killed later, along with as many as 18 suspected collaborators.