Militants in Iraq behead U.S. hostage

BAGHDAD – An Islamic group led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi posted a grisly video on the Internet Monday night showing what it said was the beheading of American contractor Eugene “Jack” Armstrong.

A U.S. official in Washington, D.C., confirmed that a body believed to be Armstrong’s had been recovered, news services reported.

The group said it intended to kill one of two other men kidnapped Thursday with Armstrong – another American contractor or a British engineer – within 24 hours unless the U.S. government met its demand to release all Muslim women from U.S. military jails in Iraq. The nine-minute video shows Armstrong, a Michigan native, blindfolded and seated in an orange jumpsuit in front of five masked men, four armed with assault rifles. Behind the black-clad militants is the black-and-white banner of Zarqawi’s militant group, Jamaat al-Tawhid and Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War), which has claimed responsibility for the beheadings of other hostages including an American contractor, Nicholas Berg, in May and South Korean driver Kim Sun Il in June.

After reading a statement, a man identified in the video as Zarqawi draws a knife from his belt and uses it to cut off Armstrong’s head.

“The fate of the first infidel was cutting off the head before your eyes and ears,” the speaker says. “You have a 24-hour opportunity. Abide by our demand in full and release all the Muslim women; otherwise the head of the other will follow this one.”

The speaker addressed President Bush as “a dog” and 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.”

The other two hostages are Jack Hensley, 48, of Marietta, Ga., and Briton Kenneth Bigley, 62. All three men were working in Iraq for Gulf Supplies and Commercial Services Co. of the United Arab Emirates.

The group had set a 48-hour deadline Saturday for the release of Muslim women held at two prisons: Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad, and Camp Bucca, near Umm Qasr in southern Iraq. U.S. military officials say only two women are being held in Iraq and neither is confined at those prisons. The two women, Rihab Taha and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, allegedly were part of ousted president Saddam Hussein’s program to develop biological weapons.

The gruesome slaying marked the latest turn in nine days of unrelenting violence in Iraq. In addition to an epidemic of kidnappings that has plagued the capital in recent months, more than 250 people have been killed and hundreds injured in suicide attacks, car bombings, roadside ambushes and kidnappings.

The United States has blamed Zarqawi, a former convict who reportedly converted to militant Islam while in prison, for much of the violence.

U.S. forces bombed a construction site in Fallujah around 2 p.m. Monday, according to a statement released by the U.S. military. The attack killed five Iraqis and injured seven, according to hospital officials and witnesses who disputed U.S. military claims that equipment at the site was used by insurgents to build fighting positions.

A statement released by the military said the attack was aimed at “heavy construction equipment used by Anti-Iraqi Forces to build fortified fighting positions.”

But witnesses said the attack was in an area where workers were repairing a road leading to the Fallujah train station. The witnesses said the strike killed a bulldozer operator and another laborer. Three others, including an Iraqi journalist, were killed when they rushed to the scene and were hit by a second airstrike, the witnesses said.

Earlier Monday, two leading Sunni Muslim clerics were assassinated within hours of each other in Baghdad in what appeared to signal an escalation of violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslim groups.

In another incident, insurgents killed a U.S. soldier from the 1st Infantry Division during an attack in the town of Sharqat, 168 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. The soldier’s name was withheld pending notification of his family.