Iraq reacts to beheading

2004-05-12 13:07

Baghdad - The gruesome beheading of a US businessman in Iraq was greeted by condemnation and excuses on the streets of Baghdad on Wednesday.

As Americans reacted with horror to the killing of Nicholas Berg, the US military in Baghdad said it was not aware any offer had been made by his kidnappers to exchange him for prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail, where US soldiers are accused of mistreating inmates.

"We don't engage in any negotiations with abductors," said a senior military official on condition of anonymity.

Berg, who had been missing since mid-April, was shown being decapitated with a large knife in a video posted on an Islamic website after his kidnappers referred to the abuse scandal.

Masked men on the video said the killing was revenge against abuse and humiliation carried out by US guards at Abu Ghraib prison, just west of Baghdad.

"For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the US administration to exchange this hostage with some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib and they refused," one of the men read from a statement.

Natural reaction

The tape on the website with links to al-Qaeda was entitled Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American, referring to a wanted Jordanian whom the United States accuses of masterminding suicide attacks in Iraq.

Berg's body was found at the weekend by the side of a road in Baghdad.

"From what we have seen, it was a natural reaction to the human rights violations at Abu Ghraib. What the Americans are doing now is terrible," said one woman, a 45-year-old dentist in Baghdad.

But house painter Ali Abu Nabi, 29, said: "He was a human being and he came to Iraq on a mission to help Iraqis."

- AFP