/ 3 November 2004

Video: Iraq group beheads three guardsmen

A militant group calling itself the ”Brigades of Iraq’s Honourable People” on Wednesday provided a video that shows the beheading of three members of the Iraqi national guard accused of spying for United States forces, Al-Jazeera television said.

The hitherto unknown group said it ”slaughtered three elements from the Iraqi national guard on charges of spying for, and collaboration with, US forces,” the Qatar-based news channel said.

The group provided a video showing the three men ”confessing” to spying for US forces and ”taking part in raids and the capture of Iraqi resistance fighters”, the channel said.

Al-Jazeera said the video shows the ”execution” of the three but it will refrain from airing the footage ”out of respect for viewers’ feelings”.

The station aired only footage of the three men before they were killed, in which they are shown with a hooded gunman.

Earlier, the al-Qaeda-linked Army of Ansar al-Sunna posted a video on its website showing the beheading of ”a senior Iraqi army officer” in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

It accused him of taking part, ”along with his soldiers, in several operations against the Mujahedin” in the area ”at the behest of his American masters”.

Many alleged Iraqi collaborators and foreigners have been beheaded after they were abducted by Islamist militant groups in Iraq in the past few months. — Sapa-AFP