British hostage executed, ending harrowing three-week ordeal

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - British hostage Kenneth Bigley was beheaded after a group of armed men handed down a "sentence of execution" to the 62-year-old civilian, while US planes bombed a suspected hideout of an Islamic militant blamed for beheading several hostages.
One of six men shown in the two-minute video clip given to Abu Dhabi satellite television read a statement similar to those of radical groups which have killed other hostages in Iraq, saying he would carry out "the sentence of execution against this hostage. Bigley's family confirmed his killing.
"We can confirm that the family now has received absolute proof that Ken Bigley was executed by his captors," his younger brother Phil Bigley said in statement in Liverpool carried live on British television networks.
He also said that the family believed that the British government had done all it could "to secure the release of Ken" after he was abducted in Baghdad on September 16.
Abu Dhabi television said late Friday night that it has a video showing Bigley's murder, but that it will not broadcast it.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw immediately condemned "the barbaric murder" of Bigley.
The 62-year-old civilian engineer was kidnapped on September 16 along with two US colleagues who have since been beheaded by their captors, the hardline Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group, led by Iraq's most-wanted man Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
Nearly 150 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since April when violence swept the country amid dual Sunni and Shiite revolts against the US presence in the country.
It was a harsh blow after hopes for Bigley's survival rose when his captors spared him from an immediate death like that of his two American colleagues. In recent days, his family said they believed Bigley had been handed over to a more moderate group.
Bigley was last seen pleading tearfully for his life, penned in a cage, in a video aired on Arab television on September 29, begging British Prime Minister Tony Blair to meet his tormentors demands. His captors had initially called for the coalition to free all female detainees in Iraq.
News of the execution came hours after the US military said it struck a building in the rebel city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in the hunt for Zarqawi, who has a 25-million-dollar price on his head.
But the latest raid in Fallujah was marred by charges that a wedding party was hit in the strike.
Twelve people were killed and 16 wounded, including nine females, as they celebrated a wedding, said doctors at Fallujah's general hospital, adding the bride was among the wounded.
The US military, for which this Sunni Muslim bastion has since April become a no-go zone for its ground troops, offered no information on casualties.
"This strike contributed to reducing the capability of the Zarqawi network and increasing safety and security throughout Iraq," it said in a statement.
Further west, in another flashpoint, a US military patrol said it witnessed insurgents blow up the building of the Red Crescent in downtown Ramadi, according to a military statement.
Elsewhere, US and Iraqi troops also pressed on with an assault on pockets of insurgency south of Baghdad.
Some 2,000 US and Iraqi forces were combing the belt of farming towns -- Mahmudiyah, Latifiyah and Iskandariyah -- known as the triangle of death, where insurgents have been killing and kidnapping foreigners and locals alike.
At least two rebels have been killed, an unknown number wounded and nearly 60 suspected insurgents detained since Tuesday, a US military spokesman said.
"Eight coalition forces, marines and soldiers, have been wounded," he added.
The offensive came just days after US and Iraqi troops wrested control of the city of Samarra from rebel hands in their largest joint operation to date.
The New York Times said other hotspots were being targeted.
Citing unnamed senior officials, it said US military planners had identified 20 to 30 towns and cities in Iraq that must be brought under control before nationwide elections can be held in January.
The interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has said it is in contact with representatives from rebel strongholds such as Fallujah and the Shiite Baghdad slum of Sadr City, while maintaining that the military option was the last resort.
Even as the government sent out feelers about a diplomatic solution to a stalemate with rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr's militia, a US missile killed three men who an American officer said were planting a bomb in Sadr City before dawn on Friday.
The US commander for Sadr City, Colonel Abe Abram, told AFP he expected a combined military, diplomatic and economic push to reclaim the teeming slum, home to 2.5 million people, from Sadr's Mehdi Army militia before January elections.
But the militia raised hope for a peaceful resolution Thursday, offering to give up large- and medium-sized weapons in return for the release of prisoners and a role in Iraq's US-backed political process.
Iraq's national security adviser Qasim Dawood welcomed the gesture but offered no indication whether the government would comply with the demands.
Challenging the peace process, an Iraqi police officer was shot dead and two others wounded Friday when their patrol came under attack near the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
In addition, US forces and Iraqi police were trying to identify a body found shot dead near to Kirkuk.
Just south of Kirkuk, a US soldier was killed and another wounded in a bomb attack near Tuz, the military said.