Iraqi hostage beheading appears on website

A video purporting to show the beheading of a Turkish driver kidnapped in Iraq last month surfaced today on the website of an al-Qaida-linked militant group.

On the video, the victim identifies himself as Durmus Kumdereli. Speaking in Turkish, he says he was transporting goods to an American military base in Mosul. Arabic subtitles accompanied his words.

Afterward, a black screen with a title reading “the execution” appears, followed by warnings from masked, armed militants to foreign drivers and grisly footage of the beheading.

The video, which was digitally dated August 17, was posted on the website of Tawhid and Jihad, a group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that has beheaded other foreign hostages in the past.

Kumdereli was abducted on August 14 outside Mosul after delivering water to a US base in Baghdad. Another Turkish driver, Mustafa Koksal, was taken hostage with him, but four days later, the Turkish government said he had been rescued.