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More on Zarqawi killing the second hostage
An al-Qaida-linked group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed Tuesday to have killed the second of two American hostages - back-to-back slayings that have notched up the Jordanian militant's ruthless campaign of terror. The claim, posted on an an Islamic Web site, could not immediately be verified. Al-Zarqawi's group, Tawhid and Jihad, kidnapped two Americans - Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong - and Briton Kenneth Bigley on Thursday from a home that the three civil engineers shared in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood. Al-Zarqawi beheaded Armstrong, and the militants on Monday posted a gruesome video of the 52-year-old man's death.The new posting followed the passing of the militants' 24-hour deadline for the release of all Iraqi women from prison, and after anguished relatives in the United States and Britain begged for the lives of Bigley, 62, and Hensley, who would have marked his 49th birthday Wednesday. "We do not have confirmation as of now that the body that has been found is Jack Hensley. We are still hopeful at this time that Jack Hensley is still with us," Hensley's wife, Pati, said in a prepared statement read by family spokesman Jack Haley outside the family's home in Marietta, Ga. "The nation's zealous sons slaughtered the second American hostage after the end of the deadline," the first statement said. It was signed with the pseudonym Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the name usually used on statements from al-Zarqawi's group. Claims on this Web site have proven to be accurate in the past. The brief statement did not give the name of the hostage killed. Several hours passed on Tuesday after the initial announcement with the promised video proof failing to appear. On Monday, by contrast, the video of Armstrong's killing was posted within an hour of the initial statement claiming he was dead. Late Tuesday, an expanded version of the statement saying a second American had been killed appeared on a different Web site and warned that Bigley would be the next to die. It did not contain any new deadline, and its authenticity was not known. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-09-22 |
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