IRAQ/US: The beheading on video of Nicholas Berg has caused outrage in the United States and a deepening apprehension about the fate of American soldiers and civilians listed as missing in Iraq.
President Bush offered condolences to the relatives for the "brutal execution" of Mr Berg by terrorists, but the Berg family expressed anger at US authorities for allegedly detaining the 26-year-old engineer in Iraq when he wanted to return home.
US network and cable television did not show the moment of execution, though news websites carried pictures of Mr Berg's executioners holding up his severed head.
The decapitation recalled the videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan two years ago. Like Mr Pearl, Mr Berg was Jewish and carried with him a fringed religious cloth.
"There's a better chance than not that they knew he was Jewish," his father, Mr Michael Berg, said. "That probably clinched it."
Mr Berg, whose family company built radio towers, spoke to his parents on March 24th and told them he would return home on March 30th. But he was detained by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul on March 24th, turned over to US officials and detained for 13 days.
His father said his son wasn't allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer. "His ticket was for March the 30th," he said at the family home in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
"If they had let him go before March 30th before hostilities escalated" his life might have been saved.
He asked why it took the US authorities in Baghdad six days after the FBI called at the family home to verify his identity before he was released.
The family reacted furiously to a statement by Coalition spokesman Mr Dan Senor in Baghdad yesterday that Mr Berg was never in US custody. His brother David told reporters that this was not true and that they had received e-mails from Nicholas Berg explicitly stating he was in US hands.
Mr Senor said that FBI officials visited Mr Berg three times when in Iraqi custody and ascertained he was not engaged in suspicious activity. He said he was released on April 6th and advised to leave Iraq.
His parents filed a law suit in federal court in Philadelphia on April 5th asserting he was being held by the US military in violation of his civil rights.
Mr Berg went to Iraq, according to his parents, "to seek business opportunities".
His body was found near a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday, the same day he was beheaded.
The video posted on an al-Qaeda-linked website showed masked men reading a statement that the killing was in revenge for humiliating Iraqi prisoners.
After pushing Mr Berg to the floor, the men severed his head and held it up for the camera.
The video bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American," referring to an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden believed to be behind a wave of suicide bombings in Iraq.
"The activities of the terrorists remind us of the few people who want to stop the advance of freedom in Iraq," Mr Bush said. They did it to shake American confidence but "we will complete our mission".
The killing is, however, likely to further discourage American contract workers from going to Iraq: since the insurgency flared last month, about three out of 10 contract workers in projects financed by the US Agency for International Development have fled Iraq, according to USAID director Mr Andrew Natsios.
US officials fear that more executions could follow but have declined to give the number of Americans missing or believed kidnapped.
The beheading of Mr Berg has fuelled a debate over the American role in Iraq, with the latest Gallup poll showing that for the first time a majority of Americans - 54 per cent - think it was not worth going to war.
The US National Council of Churches, representing 36 Protestant and Orthodox denominations, said US foreign policy was "dangerous" and urged President Bush to turn over authority in Iraq to the United Nations.
"Many people see our policy as one based on protection of our country's economic interests narrowly defined, rather than on principles of human rights and justice that would serve our nation's interests," the council, which opposed the war, said in a pastoral letter on Tuesday.
"We are convinced that current policy is dangerous for America and the world and will only lead to further violence."
The Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church, whose 8.3 million members includes Mr Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, said: "The cycle of violence in which the United States is engaged has created a context for the denigration of human dignity and gross violations of human rights of Iraqi prisoners of war."