Beheaded: Islamic militants carry out threat to kill US hostage

AN AL-QAIDA group in Saudi Arabia yesterday carried out its threat to behead an American engineer they had taken hostage.

The militants posted three grisly photographs of Paul Johnson's severed head on a website and threatened the same punishment for other Americans "and their allies in the war against Islam".

The photographs and statement, in the name of Fallujah Brigade of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, appeared hours after Mr Johnson's wife went on Arab television and tearfully pleaded for his release.