US hostage in Iraq beheaded in website video

A VIDEO posted on a website last night showed the apparent beheading of American construction contractor Eugene Armstrong, said to have been carried out personally by key Iraq terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The authenticity of the nine-minute tape could not be verified, but the voice of the militant reading a statement behind the sobbing man, blindfolded and wearing an orange jumpsuit, sounded like past recordings said to be of Zarqawi.

Five militants dressed in black stood behind the man, who was identified after an earlier video announcing their abduction as Armstrong.