12 May 2004	Wednesday	21 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

WASHINGTON, May 11: An Al Qaeda-related website has posted a video showing the beheading of a 26-year-old American whose body was found in Baghdad over the weekend, US television networks said on Tuesday.

A State Department official identified the slain American as Nicholas Berg, a private businessman from Pennsylvania who was in Iraq looking for contracts. The official said Mr Berg's body had been found by the side of a road near Baghdad over the weekend.

Television networks said the video of Mr Berg's execution showed five hooded men standing behind him while one of them read a statement denouncing the abuses of Iraqi detainees by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison.

A bearded Berg was seated on the ground dressed in an orange jumpsuit while the statement was read. After the statement was finished, Mr Berg's captors decapitated him with a large knife, according to the networks, which did not show video of the actual execution but described it as horrific.

The gruesome manner of slaying was similar to the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded in Pakistan. The networks said the tape on the militant web site with links to Al Qaeda was titled "Abu Mussab al Zarqawi slaughtering an American".

Zarqawi is a wanted Al Qaeda operative. The networks said it was unclear whether Zarqawi himself murdered Mr Berg. A US official said the Central Intelligence Agency was reviewing the tape.

"We're reviewing the tape. At this point we need to review it to see whether it is Zarqawi," the official said. The State Department official said Berg had gone missing in mid-April.

The official also said that Mr Berg had been taken into Iraqi custody around the town of Mosul in late March. "He was released and went to Baghdad in early April," the official said, adding that he did not know why Mr Berg was arrested. -AFP