BAGHDAD, Iraq – An al-Qaida-linked group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed Tuesday to have killed the second of two American hostages.
The claim, posted on an Islamic Web site, could not immediately be verified.
Al-Zarqawi’s group, Tawhid and Jihad, kidnapped two Americans – Jack Hensley and Eugene “Jack” 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, of Marietta, Ga., who would have marked his 49th birthday today.
Several hours passed 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.
Meanwhile, a car bomb wounded four U.S. soldiers on the road to Baghdad’s airport Tuesday and two Marines were reported killed in earlier attacks west of the capital.
Early today, U.S. aircraft and tanks attacked rebel positions as fierce fighting erupted in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, a stronghold of fighters loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. One helicopter was hit by ground fire but managed to return to its base, and one tank was disabled by a roadside bomb. There were no immediate reports of any injuries to U.S. forces.
The Turkish VINSAN construction company announced Tuesday it was bowing to the demands of militants and halting operations in Iraq in a bid to save the lives of 10 kidnapped Turkish employees.
But Turkish state TRT television reported the body of a Turk, identified as Akar Besir, was found early Tuesday near Mosul. The station said Besir was employed as a driver for a firm working for the U.S. military and was kidnapped on Saturday.
At Fort Bragg, N.C., a military judge recommended a court-martial for Pfc. Lynndie England, 21, in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, but said the young Army reservist was “easily led” and had been “heavily influenced” by an ex-boyfriend who is also charged in the case.
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