The latest executions mirror those of al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group who ambushed and killed 50 Iraqi army recruits execution-style last Sunday.
In the video posted on militant group Ansar al-Sunnah's Web site, each man is seen reading aloud his name and his unit. One man was then forced to the floor, and a militant pulled his head by the hair and cut off his head. A gunman then shot the others one by one as they knelt on the ground, their arms bound. Some of the men cringed as they heard the shots. The gunman then emptied a full clip into the bodies. The al-Sunnah militant group justified the killings by accusing the security officers of supporting foreign forces occupying Iraq.
A statement on the Web site said, "We will not forget about the blood of our elderly, women and children that are shed daily in Fallujah, Samarra, Ramadi and elsewhere on your hands and the hands of those you work with."
The Polish hostage was the latest foreign woman to be abducted in Iraq. Her kidnappers, members if the militant group Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, are demanding that Poland withdraw its troops from the country.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said the woman, a longtime resident with Iraqi citizenship, was believed to have been abducted from her home in Baghdad on Wednesday night.
Polish officials refused to release her name citing security concerns. In Warsaw, Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said the woman was a Polish citizen married to an Iraqi and who worked at the Polish Embassy in Baghdad in the 1990s. Cimoszewicz said the embassy would now warn all Polish women married to Iraqis, thought to number about 15, to leave Iraq for their own safety.
Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski rejected the militant's demands to withdraw Poland's 2,500 troops from Iraq. "Poland is not in the business of meeting demands of hostage takers."
Thursday's kidnapping came as the deadline neared for Shosei Koda, a Japanese tourist who appeared in a video Tuesday saying he wold be beheaded in 48 hours unless Japan pulled out of Iraq -- a demand rejected by Tokyo.
In new violence Thursday, a car bomb exploded in Southern Baghdad killing a U.S. soldier and at least one Iraqi civilian and wounding two other American soldiers, the U.S. military said. Another U.S. soldier was killed when insurgents attacked his patrol south of Balad, about 40 miles north of Baghdad.
Also Thursday, in the continuing assault on rebel-held Fallujah, U.S. forces air-bombed a suspected safehouse killing two people, hospital officials said.
Insurgents clashed with U.S. forces in Ramadi, leaving two dead and four wounded, according to the U.S. military and hospital officials. Marines detained some individuals, the military said.
-- Compiled from wire reports and other media sources
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October 28, 2004, 3:57pm EDT
