Al-Qaeda beheaded U.S. civilian engineer Paul Johnson after the Saudi government failed to meet a deadline to free jailed terrorists. Johnson's beheading was the third carried out by al-Qaeda since 2002. In May of that year, U.S. contractor Nicholas Berg was kidnapped and beheaded in Iraq. The CIA said the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, likely carried out the decapitation himself.

  The SITE (Search for International Terrorist Entities) Institute, a Washington organization which tracks terrorist groups, located an Arabic-language communique concerning Johnson's killing accompanied by grim photographs of the murder on a website set upusing the free service provided by Yahoo subsidiary Geocities.

    

Translation from Sawt al-Jihad (The Voice of Jihad) #19, an Al Qaeda publication, concerning the beheading of American hostage Paul M. Johnson in Saudi Arabia:

  Thanks to Allah, and prayer and peace on His messenger, our Prophet Mohammad and His companions and followers.

  As promised, and after the expiration of the ultimatum set by the Mujahideen to the Devils in the Saudi Government, the Mujahideen from the Fallujah Detachment beheaded the American prisoner (Paul Marshall ). This infidel received his fair punishment in this world before moving to the other world. He got to taste some of what the Muslims suffered from the Apache American helicopters that grilled them with their fire flames, embers, and missiles. The American infidel was one of four people in charge of the maintenance and system development of those helicopters.

  With His help, we shall continue to fight the enemies of Allah, watching them everywhere, guided by the light of His book, and the law of His prophet, prayer and peace on Him. We shall put out the fire in the chests of the Believers in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Arab Peninsula, and other Muslim countries. We shall keep humiliating the Polytheists and Blasphemers’ soldiers until the erection of a government ruled by the Shari’a, the Justice, and Attawhid. In our journey, we shall not pay attention to put the traitors down, or listen to the cawing of the failures that were disclosed by Allah in this incident. They shouted in fury for the capture and killing of a Christian soldier while they did not have the courage to say one word of truth in support of the oppressed Muslim prisoners who are being tortured at the hands of the adorers of the cross, and the devils of Abu Ghraib, Al Ha’er, Guantanamo, Al Ruways and other prisons.

  As for the Americans and their supporters, blasphemers and criminals who ganged up in their coalition for a war on Islam, this action is an example and a lesson for them to be sure that those of them who came to our country will receive the same fate and Allah is our guide to the path of righteousness.

Signed: Al Qaeda Organization in the Arab Peninsula

Beheading Sanctioned by the Qur'an

  Islamic terrorists, in their attempt to drive out infidels, sometimes behead their enemies. This form of execution has been widely adopted by Islamist extremists in recent conflicts in Algeria, Bosnia and Chechnya.

  While beheading went out of use long ago in the West, the Saudi government still uses it for executing men and occasionally women for serious crimes, occasionally including religious crimes such as blasphemy. Beheading is specified by sharia (Islamic law), but should be used only in extreme cases, with at least one judge and credible witnesses to a crime.

  The Saudi government's senior executioner, Mr Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, gave several media interviews last year, bragging that his sword is 'very sharp. People are amazed how fast it can separate the head from the body."

  According to Andrew Bostom, associate professor of medicine at Boston University, beheadings, "are consistent with sacred jihad practices, as well as Islamic attitudes towards all non-Muslim infidels, in particular Jews, which date back to the seventh century."

  One of Muhammad's biographers, Ibn Ishaq, related that the founder of Islam approved the beheadings of 700 men of the Jewish Qurayza tribe of Medin. Their bodies were then stacked in trenches. The Qur'an refers to such a punishment for infidels and Muhammad oversaw the beheading of several hundred men during his lifetime. The incident is referred to in book 33:25-27, which says, in part, "some ye slew and some ye made prisoners."

Must See TV

  Media-savvy politicians have long used the power of television to deliver a message or win a political campaign; today terrorists are doing the same.

  Bin Laden was the first to command global attention by using Al Jazeera, CNN and others to deliver his threats and recruitment messages. TV outlets throughout the world are competing to rebroadcast Bin Laden’s messages, Al Zawaheri’s threats. Recently, beheading rituals have become the new fad for fear.

  In Daniel Pearl's case, video footage of the murder was delivered to the US consulate in Karachi. The video of Mr Berg's killing was posted immediately on the Internet, and aired in part by CBS News, provoking a storm of grief and outrage.

  In 2002, gruesome killings morphed into more than just killing the enemy when Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was beheaded in Pakistan. A recording of the beheading made its way to international media outlets. Beheadings became spectacle - propaganda messages. Terror begins in the mind, is expressed through language and ultimately made manifest in extremely brutal acts.

  Grisly images of several hostages, beheaded by terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere, were posted on the Internet and broadcast on Arab-language news channels such as Al-Jazeerah. According to a SITE analyst, "Terrorism doesn't work unless the media is involved. Shooting someone isn't necessarily terrorism. Beheading someone and posting it on the Web is terrorism.

  Some of those executed wore orange jumpsuits similar to those seen on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. It is the revenge of the hooded people, tit for tat.

  Islamist extremists have stolen the show. And, they have more than mastered the Internet to spread terrorist information globally.They understand the concept of building up a story, and on many occasions they made sure to release their messages just before the weekend to dominate not only the news but the Saturday and Sunday shows as well.

  The stories and videos were repeated by all major networks over and over. Each time a video of the captured victim was released, TV networks immediately pre-empted their programming to air it. Each time a beheading occurred, TV networks raced to deliver the news.

  Mr Johnson's killers managed to draw even more attention by announcing in a Web posting after his abduction that he would be killed in 72 hours if their demands were not met. This created an an air of expectation; a period in which a grim sense of expectation could develop. Johnson was alive, but doomed as the 72-hour countdown went on.

  "The Internet has a powerful pull for terror groups because it allows instant, international distribution to groups that can not broadcast their messages via traditional media.

  A universal theme motivating terrorists is humiliation. Terrorism is an attempt at empowerment. There has been a progression in the terrorists' exploitation of images to announce and dramatise their killings. Terror groups are savvy enough to recognise that only the most violent, most graphic events will draw attention. beheadings are able to singularly focus an audience's attention. They became a ritual way of slaughtering infidels. That's how animals are slaughtered, implyings infidels are no better than animals.

The Effect of Grisly Propaganda in the Arab World

  Paul Johnson's beheading sent a shiver of disgust throughout the world. Except the Arab world, that is.

  Some few columnists, such as Saudi Abdul Rahman al-Rashed and Kuwaiti Ahmed al-Rubai, condemned the killing. But most who were outraged by the murder are afraid to express their feelings for fear of being killed.

  The beheading of the American contractor from New Jersey and the Saudi response to it point to a broad and dangerous trend: Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world are swimming in a sea of violent language that justifies terrorism and makes it acceptable, especially to the young. Terrorism will not be defeated before its justification in Arab newspapers and Arab TVs and mosques is eliminated. For example, when an Al-Jazeera anchor adopts the language of al Qaeda and refers to Saudi Arabia as "Jazeerat al-Arab" (the Arabian Island), as if the current Saudi state never existed, terrorism wins.

  In much of the Muslim world al-Qaeda and its ideas are no longer perceived as extreme. Indeed, they have become mainstream. Being a part of this movement has become "cool" in the eyes of young people. One Kuwaiti who graduated from a school in Pennsylvania was quoted as sayin. Don't believe them when they say it is al Qaeda that is slaying Americans. It is Americans who are killing Americans to justify their presence in the Arab world and to control Arab oil." Such conspiracies are rampant among Arab youth."

  American media, likewise, should refrain from giving newspaper space and television airtime to terrorists, their pronouncements and their acts. They are not killing for Allah, but for publicity. These should be confronted in their hiding places, ferreted out and captured without media coverage.

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