Islamic Website Claims American Beheaded
Is Dan Rather really what you all want to talk about when this just came across the wires?
A Web site posting Monday claimed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group has beheaded one of the American hostages in Iraq and that others would soon be killed. The claim could not be verified. The short statement was posted by a Web site contributor using the pseudonym Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, who has put up past statements signed in the name of the Tawhid and Jihad group. The posting promised video proof "soon."
al-Zarqawi "has beheaded the first American. The group will next behead the others," the statement said. The reliability and authenticity of such statements, videos and pictures, which appear frequently on Internet sites known for their Islamic content, cannot be known for certain.
Update: Reuters reports that the website has posted the video., and that the American beheaded is U.S. Contractor Eugene Armstrong.
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.
Update: Mr. Armstrong's body has been found.
R.I.P, Mr. Armstrong
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