The evil murderers who saw off the heads of helpless prisoners in the name of Allah will not be appeased by the US: U.S. Says Won’t Bow to Demand of Kidnappers in Iraq.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - With time running out to save a British hostage in Iraq, U.S. officials said on Wednesday they were not about to free female Iraqi prisoners as demanded by an al Qaeda ally whose group has already beheaded two Americans.

The Iraqi government said judges had ruled that a weapons scientist — one of only two women Washington says it holds — should be given a conditional release, but only in a few days.

It was unclear whether Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s demand for all women to be freed even referred to this pair at all — both scientists, they worked for Saddam Hussein’s secular government.

The Jordanian Islamist’s Tawhid and Jihad group, responsible for some of the bloodiest violence in Iraq, says it killed American building contractors Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong after its demand was not met. It says their British colleague Kenneth Bigley, 62, will be next to die but has set no deadline.

After slaughtering Eugene Armstrong, the killers said:

“Now, you have people who love death just like you love life. Killing for the sake of God is their best wish, getting to your soldiers and allies are their happiest moments, and cutting the heads of the criminal infidels is implementing the orders of our lord.”

Steven Stalinsky of MEMRI says we’re seeing the modern revival of a practice with a very long history: Beheading Revival.

Earlier this year, an Al-Qa’ida member in Saudi Arabia warned of beheadings in his last will and testament. Hazem Al-Kashmiri, the son of a retired leading general of the Saudi internal security force, informed the world that Al-Qa’ida had “a message to the American soldiers… We promise that we will not let you live safely, and you will not see from us anything else just bombs, fire, destroying homes, cutting your heads…”

The 18th issue of the Al-Qa’ida-identified journal ‘Sawt Al-Jihad’ included an interview with Fawwaz bin Muhammad Al-Nashami, commander of the Al-Quds Brigade which took responsibility for the May 29 attack at Khobar, Saudi Arabia, in which 22 people were killed. Al-Nashami detailed how Al-Qa’ida members cut the throats of non-Muslims, and in one case, beheaded one of their victims-all as “acts of devotion to Allah:” “We turned to the third site… found a Swedish infidel. Brother Nimr cut off his head, and put it at the gate [of the building] so that it would be seen by all those entering and exiting.”

The beheading of Daniel Pearl, which at the time seemed like an isolated incident, has now influenced other Islamists in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Even in London, the website of Islamist Sheikh Abu Hamza Al-Masri earlier this year featured video of children pretending to behead other children. Islamic history includes periods in which beheadings against ‘infidels’ were a common practice, and it seems that this cycle has begun to repeat itself.