Militants behead kidnapped American

The video shows a thin, bearded man, who identified himself as Nicholas Berg of West Chester, Pennsylvania, seated before five masked men. Berg appeared to be wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those issued to Iraqis in American-run prisons here. After the militants read a statement, the tape showed the men pushing Berg to the floor. As he screamed, one of the men put a knife to Berg’s neck and yelled ‘‘God is Great.’’ The head was held up to the camera.

The State Department confirmed that Berg’s body was found on Saturday near an overpass in Baghdad. A US intelligence official said the body was found without a head.

Berg’s family in Pennsylvania said a State Department official had notified them on Monday of their son’s death. They said Berg, 26, had gone to Iraq twice since December as an independent businessman looking for work fixing communication antennas. ‘‘I knew he was decapitated before,’’ Michael Berg, the father, told the Associated Press on Tuesday after the videotape was shown. ‘‘That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn’t want it to become public.’’

It is not clear how long Berg had been in captivity, nor is it clear whether he had found any work in Iraq. The Bergs said they last heard from their son on April 9, and that he had told them he was heading home through either Turkey, Jordan or Kuwait. That was the same day that nine Americans, including two soldiers, were kidnapped by insurgents during attacks on their convoys west of Baghdad, on the main highway to the Jordanian border.

The bodies of four have been recovered. One man kidnapped that day, Thomas Hamill, escaped to freedom, while three civilian contractors, all believed to be working for Kellogg Brown & Root are still missing. It is not clear whether Berg was on one of those convoys. Before Berg was killed, one of the men on the videotape said in Arabic: ‘‘For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we asked the US administration to exchange this hostage with some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib, and they refused.’’

The masked man reading the statement mentioned Al Qaeda suggesting that the abuses at Abu Ghraib justified the terrorist group’s broader war on the West. One of the masked men also tries to inspire his viewers, to chide what he regards as a complacent Muslim clergy and to threaten President Bush with a humiliating defeat.

He says the abuses committed by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib justify the attacks by Al Qaeda. ‘‘Does Al Qaeda need any more excuses?’’ the man asks. The website also carries a photograph of a naked Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib cowering before a growling police dog. ‘‘The shameful photos are evil humiliation for Muslim men and women in the Abu Ghraib prison,’’ the masked man says. ‘‘Where is the sense of honour, where is the rage?’’

Then he addressed Bush. ‘‘Regarding you, Bush, dog of the West, we are giving you good news which will displease you. Your worst days are coming, with the help of God. You and your soldiers will regret the day when your feet touched the land of Iraq.’’ — (NYT)