A militant group beheaded three Iraqi National Guards it accused of spying for US troops in Iraq and helping arrest insurgents, Al Jazeera television reported today.
The Arabic TV station aired video footage it said was from a previously unheard of group calling itself "Brigades of the Iraqi Honourables", which showed the three men with a masked militant standing behind them.
Al Jazeera said the men had confessed during their arrest of "spying and taking part in raids and arrests against resistant fighters".
The video showed close-ups of the mens' identification cards and showed them speaking, but their statements were not audible.
The television said it would not show them being beheaded "in respect to viewers' feelings".
Separately, an Iraqi police source said three headless bodies were found in central Baghdad today beneath a bridge across the Tigris river into the Green Zone that houses Iraq's interim government and US and British embassies.
But it was not known whether the bodies were those of the Iraqi National Guards, or whether those beheadings took place in Baghdad.