Video shows Iraqi execution of 12 hostages

A website linked to an Iraqi militant group today showed a video of what is purported to be the execution of 12 Nepalese workers by their kidnappers.

The video showed a masked man slitting the throat of a blind-folded man lying on the ground. Other footage showed an armed man firing single shots from an assault rifle at the back of the heads of 11 others.

A statement on the website vowed to keep fighting the Americans in Iraq.

“America today has used all its force, as well as the help of others, to fight Islam under the so-called war on terror, which is nothing but a vicious crusade against Muslims,” the statement said.

At the end of the four-minute video, a man read another statement off-camera, vowing to fight the Iraqi government.

“We will work on exterminating them until the last fighter,” he said.

Iyad Mansoor, director-general of the Morning Star Company, a Jordan-based services firm which had contracted the 12 Nepalese workers for jobs in Iraq, said he had no information on the deaths.

“I’m shocked to hear such news,” he said. “The last I heard was that the Nepalese government was in contact with Iraqi clergymen and others in an effort to set the 12 men free.”