Recent videos of beheadings by Iraq's most wanted terrorist leader have been growing in sophistication, using animated graphics and editing techniques apparently aimed at embellishing the audio to make a victim's final moments seem more disturbing. It is a sign of the importance that terrorists in Iraq now place on such propaganda efforts. U.S. officials say that the leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose group is blamed in the beheading deaths of two Americans last week, seems acutely aware of the impact he and his followers can have through the media, and that they are becoming more adept in how to use it. "They have, obviously, a media element because they make these terrible videos of the hostages, including the executions, and they get that media out to the different outlets," said John Brennan, director of the U.S. Terrorist Threat Integration Center.
Early videos from al-Qaida and like-minded terror groups were grainy and sometimes just thumb-size video boxes that popped up on a computer monitor. But the quality of a video posted on a Web site last week, showing the beheading of U.S. contractor Eugene Armstrong, demonstrates that militant groups now apparently have access to improved technology. In the nine-minute Internet video, the images of Armstrong are captured in greater and more gruesome detail than early videos. Animated graphics are used, including a Quran with an assault rifle standing atop it. The opening sequence also is more elaborate than in earlier videos, including words that fade in and out. A title page says in Arabic: "The Media Division of the Tawhid and Jihad Group presents: The slaying of the first hostage." |