Beheading video

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (July 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (January 2007)

Colloquial term in the U.S. popularized during the War on Terror for videos released by Islamist militant groups depicting interviews by hostages taken by said groups. The prelude to these videos usually show the subject alive and pleading for their lives sometimes accompanied by their captors, sometimes not. The demands made are usually broad and general, such as total withdrawal of the hostage's country from some country, usually Iraq. Invariably a video depicting the actual beheading is released a few days later.[1]

The ubiquity of these videos has been made possible by cable news outlets with 20 hour news cycles, and the use of the internet by alleged terrorists themselves, sympathizers, bloggers and shock sites.

A hoax beheading video by Benjamin Vanderford received wide attention by the American press.[2] The creators of the video claimed to have released the video to point out how uncritically the media and Islamists would accept an anonymous video (the video turned up on Islamist websites and U.S. media outlets immediately).