American Hostage Eugene Armstrong Beheaded, Body Recovered

MND NEWSWIRE
September 20, 2004

Eugene Armstrong, one of the Americans being held hostage by Muslim extremists in Iraq, has been beheaded and a video of the killing distributed on the Internet.

According to an anonymous U.S. official, Armstrong's body has been recovered and identified.

Armstrong was kidnapped along with two other victims last Thursday from an upscale neighborhood in Baghdad by terrorist group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian member of al Qaeda.

Also kidnapped were American Jack Hensley and Briton Kenneth Bigley. Their fate remains unknown at this time.

Zarqawi's terrorists have said they will murder all three men if the U.S. does not release "Iraqi women" they claim are being held by the U.S. at Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons.

The U.S. has denied it is holding any women at these prisons, though they are holding two women who had been involved in developing weapons of mass destruction for former dictator Saddam Hussein.