British hostage Ken Bigley was beheaded near Baghdad on Thursday afternoon, insurgent sources in the rebel-held town of Fallujah said yesterday.
Abu Dhabi Television, quoting "informed" sources in Iraq, had said earlier that the militant group led by al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had killed Bigley.
Britain's Foreign Office said it was aware of the reports.
"We cannot corroborate the reports ... We are in close touch with Mr Bigley's family at this difficult time," a Foreign Office spokesman said in London.
The insurgent sources said Bigley was killed in the town of Latifiya, about 35km southwest of the Iraqi capital.
They declined to say how they had got their information.
Britain's Sky TV, quoting British government sources, also said Bigley had been killed.
The 62-year-old engineer was kidnapped in Baghdad on Sept. 16 by the Tawhid and Jihad Group which has beheaded two American hostages who were seized along with the Briton.
The kidnappers had demanded US-led forces in Iraq release women prisoners in Iraqi jails to spare Bigley's life. Washington says it holds only two women in Iraq, both top weapons scientists from the days of former president Saddam Hussein.
The British say they are not holding any women.
Iraqi Interior Ministry officials in Baghdad said they had no information on the report.
Meanwhile, US warplanes struck a building in rebel-held Fallujah where the US command said leaders of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network were meeting early yesterday. A doctor said the attack killed 13 people, including a groom on his wedding night, and wounded 17 others.
The attack came despite signs of progress in negotiations to bring Iraqi government forces back into Fallujah for the first time in months.
Elsewhere, an aide to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr offered on Thursday to disarm his Mahdi Army militia in a move that could bring an end to weeks of fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City. The government welcomed the offer and suggested other militant groups also lay down their arms.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS