Iraqi militants are threatening to decapitate the two Americans and Briton kidnapped earlier this week.

The threat came in a video purportedly from a militant group linked to al-Qaida that showed Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong and Briton Kenneth Bigley, the first word of their fate since the three construction workers were abducted from their Baghdad office two days ago.

....In the hostage video, posted on an Web site known for its Islamic militant content, kidnappers purporting to belong to Tawhid and Jihad - a group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - demanded that Iraqi women detained at two American-controlled prisons here are freed within 48 hours or the captives will be beheaded. A U.S. military official said two women are in U.S. custody.

The U.S. has acknowledged it is holding two "high value detainees" although they are not at Abu Ghraib or Camp Bucca, a U.S. detention facility near Umm Qasr.

Update: Ty Hensley, brother of one the kidnapped Americans, was on Geraldo at Large on Fox News tonight, trying to get a message out to the militants with reasons to spare his brother. Heartbreaking. Fox is going to get videotapes of the kidnapped Hensley with his wife and child out to al Jazeera and other Arab networks.

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