Beheaded man 'not CIA'

2004-08-11 23:28

Washington - A US official on denied Wednesday that a CIA agent had been beheaded in Iraq, as claimed by an Islamic website that broadcast a video purporting to show the decapitation.

"The man depicted in the video is not a CIA official," the official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

"No CIA official is missing," the official said, adding that the Central Intelligence Agency knows the whereabouts of everyone on its payroll.

The website on Wednesday showed a videotape which it said was of a US national and CIA agent being beheaded by members of a militant group in Iraq.

In the poor-quality video, whose authenticity could not be verified, a young Western-looking man is seated on a chair surrounded by five hooded gunmen, one of whom uses a long knife to cut through the man's neck and then brandishes the head.

The same site (http://ansarnet.t35.com/dabh_cia.htm) shows a dozen photographs of the operation to kill the "CIA agent".

During the four-minute video, an identity card is shown with the purported American's photograph and the mention "visitor".

But the gunmen's words are unintelligible, apart from their cry of "Allah Akbar" (God is great) when the head is cut off.

- AFP