UK DAILY MAIL:
UK condemns beheading of hostage
07:50am 12th May 2004 The beheading of an US hostage in Iraq by militants linked to al Qaida is believed to have been a revenge attack for the abuse of prisoners by US soldiers.
A poor-quality video posted on an Islamic website showing the execution was condemned by the Foreign Office as "utterly repugnant and indefensible" and the British Red Cross said it was "shocked and appalled".
The chilling footage showed the beheading of a man - who gave his name as Nick Berg - by a group of five men wearing headscarfs and black ski masks.
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The men said that the killing was to avenge the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US soldiers - widely predicted since the release of the pictures across the globe.
The video posted on the Ansar Islam Forum website - a known clearing house for statements by extremist Islamic groups - was entitled "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American".
Al-Zarqawi, a known associate of al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, has been blamed by the US for orchestrating terrorist attacks in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The video shows the executioners reading a statement before pulling the man to his side and putting a large knife to his neck. A scream is heard as they cut off his head, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" - "God is great".
They then hold the head up in front of the camera.
The shocking video images, increasingly favoured as propaganda by terrorists, recalled the death of Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl.
Two years ago Muslim militants released a gruesome video of Pearl, who was kidnapped in Pakistan, being murdered in captivity as his throat was slit from behind.