Video shows beheading of American captive

A gruesome videotape posted on an Islamic militant Web site Tuesday showed the beheading of an American contractor who had been looking for work in Iraq — a bloody scene that appears to mark the first violent response to U.S. abuse of Iraqi captives at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. In a grainy execution video eerily similar to one in 2002 that showed al-Qaeda operatives executing a Wall Street Journal reporter in Pakistan, Nick Berg, 26, was shown sitting in an orange jumpsuit in front of five armed, hooded men.Berg, a freelance telecommunications contractor whose body was found on a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday, identified himself.One of the men behind Berg then read a statement that referred to the "satanic degradation" of Iraqi prisoners and said: "For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the U.S. administration to exchange this hostage for some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib, and they refused. Coffins will be arriving to you one after the other, slaughtered just like this." Berg then was pushed to the floor and screamed as one of the executioners wielded a large knife. The man sawed off Berg's head while the other captors shouted: "Allahu Akbar!" Arabic for "God is great." The videotape bore the title, "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American." It was unclear whether al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, was in the video or was claiming responsibility for the execution. CNN reported late Tuesday that technicians familiar with his voice doubted that it was al-Zarqawi on the tape.Outside their home in West Chester, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, Berg's father, brother and sister collapsed after reporters told them about the tape. The family, which had a photograph of Nick Berg taped to their mailbox, had been told by the State Department on Monday that Berg's beheaded body had been found. (Related story: Berg family mourns)On Tuesday, they were stunned to learn that, thanks to modern technology, his death essentially had been a public execution. And they were angry at the Bush administration because Nick Berg had planned to leave Iraq at the end of March, but was detained by U.S. officials for nearly two weeks after being stopped by Iraqi police at a checkpoint. It's unclear why U.S. officials detained him for so long.Besides being a human tragedy, Berg's death represents an ominous development for the Bush administration, which already is struggling to deal with the disastrous impact the prison scandal has had on America's image around the globe. With the administration trying to curb attacks by insurgents before the June 30 handover to a caretaker Iraqi government, the specter now is of terrorists ratcheting up the violence.Privately, Army officers have expressed concern that American soldiers across Iraq might pay a deadly price for the shocking images from Abu Ghraib of Arab men being humiliated and abused by U.S. military police.Berg's execution is "a particularly gruesome and graphic way" for terrorists to "get their point across that they will kill any American they can find," says Gregory Gause, director of Middle East studies at the University of Vermont. "My fear is that this awful act will lend credence to people in this country who say that whatever we do, others do worse."On a day that was headlined by a Senate hearing on the prison-abuse scandal, the White House cast the Berg video as symbolic of the evil the administration faces in fighting terrorism."It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children. We will pursue those who are responsible and bring them to justice."Berg's death is likely to increase concern among some Americans about the U.S. mission in Iraq, several foreign policy and media analysts said."I'm sure Americans are going to be horrified," says Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a media think tank. "If you hate America and you're horrified by the prison-abuse story, this is an act of revenge, I guess. For the American public, I would imagine that it will say these pictures that we've seen from the prison in Iraq are not as terrible as a beheading."An adventurous youthAs his independent trek into Iraq suggests, Nick Berg was an adventurer. He lived near his parents and ran a cell phone tower inspection business, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, out of his home.His family says that Berg first went to Iraq on Dec. 21 because he was hoping to cash in on the opportunities for work, and because, unlike his father Michael, he supported the Bush administration and the war.Berg returned home on Feb. 1 and thought he had work lined up with a private contractor, his family says, but after returning to Iraq on March 14, the job didn't materialize. On March 30, Berg's parents went to JFK International Airport in New York to pick him up from a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight. He wasn't on the flight, and the next day FBI agents visited his family's house to ask why he was in Iraq and to confirm his identity.Michael Berg said the family then learned that his son had been detained by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul on March 24. On April 5, Berg's family sued the government in federal court, claiming that he was being held illegally by the U.S. military. Berg was released the next day, and he told his parents that in 13 days of being held by Iraqi and U.S. officials without being allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer, he had not been mistreated.After he was released, Berg called or e-mailed home for four consecutive days, saying he was looking for the safest way out of Iraq as the country became more violent. After April 9 — the day the family's lawsuit was dismissed in Philadelphia — the messages from Berg stopped.An angry Michael Berg said Tuesday that his son might still be alive if he been allowed to leave Iraq on March 30, as he'd planned. "I don't think this administration is committed to democracy," Michael Berg said, referring to officials who kept his son incommunicado for nearly two weeks.The family learned of the bizarre execution video a day after they heard of his death."I knew he was decapitated before," Michael Berg said Tuesday. "That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn't want it to become public."Friends of the family were devastated. "He was like a son to me," said the Rev. Bruce Hauser, who lives next door to Berg's parents. The Bergs "are just broken up, distraught. They can't believe it, especially the way he died. It makes it worse." Hauser said he had known Nick Berg since Berg was a little boy.The quiet, middle-class neighborhood where the Bergs live likewise was transformed by reports of the videotaped execution. Neighbor Dan McCorkle, 16, walked around with a video camera taping the flood of TV trucks and journalists that descended on the neighborhood. "It's disgusting," he said. "Everyone is pretty upset."Will Scott, 27, a software developer in Austin who went to high school with Berg, told CBS that his friend was "approximately the coolest guy ever. He could build a computer out of cardboard and tin foil, and that's not really an exaggeration."Scott recalled a summer science program he attended with Berg. "Nick had an entire department of his own that he basically invented called Bergology. It was this weird combination of computer engineering, electronics, craftsmanship" Scott said. "He was really good at it — he had an energetic personality and a really good attitude — he would really get along with anybody."Evidence of al-Qaeda in IraqBerg's slaying appears to be the strongest evidence yet that al-Qaeda is operating in postwar Iraq.U.S. military officials have long suspected that al-Zarqawi, who has ties to the Ansar al-Islam group in northeastern Iraq, was the mastermind behind the rash of anti-U.S. violence in Iraq in recent months.The ritual in which Berg was killed was similar to that used by al-Qaeda operatives in the videotaped killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. U.S. authorities have said they believe that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who is now in U.S. custody, might have been Pearl's killer. If al-Zarqawi took part in Berg's killing, it could represent another effort by al-Qaeda affiliates to have a high-ranking terrorist carry out a dramatic execution of an American before the world.Al-Zarqawi has been credited with deploying a network of associates who were behind the train bombings in Madrid, suicide bombings in Turkey and a variety of foiled plots around Europe, according to published reports. U.S. officials say al-Zarqawi's rise reflects al-Qaeda's evolution into a scattered and looser organization since the United States launched attacks on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and invaded Iraq. U.S. officials issued a bounty of $10 million for al-Zarqawi, in part based on discovery of a memo thought by the military to be written by him suggesting a strategy of coordinated attacks in Iraq. In February, U.S. officials said troops killed a lieutenant of Zarqawi, a bombmaker with the alias Abu Mohammed Hamza. At the time, Dan Senor, a spokesman for the coalition, said, "We are still in hot pursuit of Mr. Zarqawi."The Web site on which the video was posted is known as a clearinghouse for al-Qaeda and Islamic extremist groups' statements and tapes.Berg's death adds to the angst already in Washington about the potential impact of the abuse scandal.News of the video began to circulate as the Senate Armed Services committee had just finished hearing testimony from Maj. Gen Antonio Taguba, who first investigated the prison-abuse scandal.Chairman John Warner, R-Va., brought a document into the committee's afternoon session describing Berg's death. He and several other senators said they feared that reprisals against Americans were inevitable as a result of the prison abuse.Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn, said that the military's investigations into the misconduct could be an opportunity to demonstrate the difference between the United States and Islamic terrorists. "There will be no al-Qaeda apologies," Lieberman said of the beheading.Peter Brookes, a senior fellow for national security affairs at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, said the murder would help stiffen Americans' support for U.S. efforts in Iraq. "This is an innocent contractor who was probably trying to help the Iraqi people live a better life ... And this is the depravity of these terrorists, and it shows the real reason for the war on terror."