Hostage 'watched' beheading video
September 28, 2004 Edition 1
British hostage Ken Bigley was made to watch a video showing the beheading of one of his American friends before he begged Prime Minister Tony Blair to save his life.
His ruthless kidnappers wanted to drive home to him what was at stake when he made his own appeal, intelligence officers believe.
But there was a glimmer of hope for the 62-year-old engineer yesterday as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat pledged his help. Arafat is believed to retain some influence with militants within Iraq.
Bigley was forced to watch the murder of Eugene Armstrong, one of the two Americans taken with him at gunpoint from their home in an Baghdad 12 days ago, it is believed.
There was no official news of his fate yesterday. But Paul Bigley claimed he had been told his brother was still alive.
Meanwhile, new details emerged of terror mastermind Abu al-Zarqawi's operations and his hunt for more Western hostages. Intelligence on Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born al-Qaeda ally with a $25 million price on his head, shows he insists his victims know their fate in advance.
He says it is not enough just to kill them physically, but that they should have been "killed" psychologically too.
He has told his fighters that the tactic terrorises occupying forces and civilian workers, and makes foreign lorry drivers refuse to enter Iraq.
l Two Egyptian hostages, among six kidnapped last week, were released late yesterday, said a spokesman for the Orascom telecom company, after the Egyptian government said only one had been freed. An Iranian diplomat taken hostage in Iraq last month was also released by his captors yesterday. - Daily Mail, Reuters, Sapa-AFP
