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A video showing the execution of an American hostage was posted on a website today, and the Islamic Army of Iraq claimed the victim was Jamestown, N.D., native Ronald Schulz. The video did not show Schulz’s face, the Associated Press reported, and it was impossible to identify him conclusively. The man was blindfolded, kneeling, with his hands tied behind his back and facing away from the camera when he was purportedly shot in the back of the head. As the execution was aired on the website, a separate piece of film on a split screen showed the footage of Schulz...

An Iraqi insurgent group said it killed a kidnapped U.S. security consultant Thursday, making the claim through an Internet posting. The posting surfaced on an Islamic militant Web forum. The group, calling itself the Islamic Army, said it will release images of the killing at a later time. It did not identify the hostage, although in an earlier statement named him as Ronald Alan Schulz. The White House has not confirmed the claim, nor has it confirmed the hostage's name. "Any time there is an American that is taken hostage it is a priority for the administration, and their safe...

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday called for the "immediate and unconditional" release of all Iraqi and foreign hostages taken by Iraqi militants. Annan "calls for their immediate, safe and unconditional release, and strongly reiterates his appeal to all sides to respect at all times the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law," his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Annan's comments came as an Internet statement by The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed it had killed a US hostage named Ronald Schulz, who was a contractor. The Islamic Army said it killed Schulz because US President George W. Bush refused to meet...

CAIRO, Egypt -- An Iraqi insurgent group said Thursday in an Internet posting that it killed a U.S. security consultant it had taken hostage. The claim's authenticity could not be immediately verified. The Islamic Army in Iraq said it had killed "the American security consultant for the Housing Ministry,"

Ronald Schulz was the captain of his high school cross country team and a four-year letter winner who won an award for practicing on 77 consecutive days, said Russ Schmeichel, who was his coach at Jamestown High School. Family and friends said Schulz, 40, is the blond, Western-looking man sitting with his hands tied behind his back in a video broadcast Tuesday by the Arab television network Al-Jazeera. The video, bearing the logo of the insurgent Islamic Army, claimed insurgents had kidnapped a U.S. security consultant. The video also showed a U.S. passport and an Arabic identification card with the...

President George W. Bush said Tuesday that the United States will work for the return of captive Americans in Iraq, but will not submit to terrorist tactics. "We, of course, don't pay ransom for any hostages," Bush said. Bush spoke on the same day that Al-Jazeera broadcast a video claiming insurgents kidnapped a US security consultant, and the militants displayed a blond, Western-looking man sitting with his hands tied behind his back. The video, the authenticity of which could not be immediately confirmed, also bore the logo of the Islamic Army in Iraq and showed a US passport and an...

ALARM - a group armed in Iraq removed an American and threatens to kill it - a radical group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, removed an American whom he threatened to kill under 48 hours if the United States does not release the prisoners in the Iraqi prisons, Tuesday chain Al-Jazira brought back by diffusing a video of a man introduced like the hostage.

American taken hostage, Iraq militants claim Group threatens to kill Western-looking man on video aired on Al-Jazeera NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS Updated: 7:52 a.m. ET Dec. 6, 2005 BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi militant group has kidnapped a U.S. security consultant and is threatening to kill him in 48 hours unless Washington frees all Iraqi prisoners, according to a video aired by Al-Jazeera television on Tuesday.