Free Republic

Italian intelligence officials who secured the release of two hostages in Iraq are working with their British counterparts to try to free Kenneth Bigley, the captive Briton. They believe that Sunni Muslim insurgents who kidnapped Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, the aid workers freed last week, have links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Tawhid wal Jihad, the group holding Mr Bigley. The engineer, 62, was captured 16 days ago with two American colleagues, who have been beheaded. An Italian diplomat said: "Italy's intelligence is working very closely with Britain's to lend every assistance to free the hostage. It has...

Kidnappers beheaded British hostage Kenneth Bigley after twice releasing videos in which he wept and pleaded with Prime Minister Tony Blair for his life. A U.S. official said Friday there was credible information that Bigley had tried to escape with the aid of one of his captors. The attempt failed and Bigley was killed a short time later as was shown on a video of his beheading, the Washington official said on condition of anonymity. There was no word on the fate of his captor. A Western official in Baghdad refused to talk about the escape attempt report. The 62-year-old...

Fallujah, Iraq, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. troops have identified the house in Fallujah where Iraqi insurgents held and beheaded British hostage Kenneth Bigley. An Iraqi insurgent captured in Fallujah Friday led Iraqi forces to the house in the city's center where he said a British hostage had been held, as well as other foreign hostages, CNN reported. Details of the house match videos in which Bigley appeared during his captivity, including such elements as writing on the walls and the presence of a chicken-wire cage. --snip---

THE QUALITY OF MERSEYToday, for the first time in all my years with the Telegraph Group, I had a column pulled. The editor expressed concerns about certain passages and we were unable to reach agreement, so on this Tuesday something else will be in my space.I’d written about Kenneth Bigley, seized with two American colleagues but unlike them not beheaded immediately. Instead, sensing that they could exploit potential differences within “the coalition of the willing”, for three weeks the Islamists played a cat-and-mouse game with Mr Bigley’s life, in which Fleet Street, the British public, governments in London and Dublin...

THE family of Kenneth Bigley again made an appeal to his captors for his freedom last night after they released a new video showing him chained inside a cage and pleading with British Prime Minister Tony Blair for help. Huddling in the corner of a cage, Mr Bigley (62) is heard saying: "Please, please, help me. I'm begging you, Mr Blair, I'm begging you to speak, to push." The cage is barely wider than his shoulders and no more than a few feet high, and a heavy chain is running around his neck and hands, binding him to the bars....

DUBAI (Reuters) - British hostage Kenneth Bigley, kidnapped 10 days ago by gunmen in Iraq, is still alive, a London-based Muslim activist who has good contacts with Islamist groups in Iraq said on Sunday. Yasser al-Serri, director of the Islamic Observation Center, said his group issued an appeal to Bigley's kidnappers through mediators in Iraq and received a reply that the Briton was still alive. The British engineer is being held by Tawhid and Jihad, a group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It beheaded two Americans seized along with the Briton when its demand to have female...