The release of a video of the alleged beheading of Nick Berg, a 26-year-old American in Iraq, has caused a mixture of responses from different quarters. The poor-quality footage, which claims to feature Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian associate of Osama bin Laden, shows five masked figures standing behind the US civilian dressed in an orange jump-suit, reminiscent of scenes similar to those of Guantanamo Bay. The video then shows one of the captors, allegedly al-Zarqawi, decapitate the victim.

Coalition forces, together with much of the western media, have hailed the video as evidence of the cruel nature of the coalitions' enemies. However, some independent analysts have voiced a number of valid questions, which question the authenticity of the tape.

One Russian analyst recently questioned, in the Russian paper Pravda, how the CIA could have authenticated the completely hooded man in a very grainy video as al-Zarqawi? Additionally, according to a US Military report in April 2003, al-Zarqawi was killed in the town of Falluja, and two other Islamic groups in Iraq have also backed this claim. Moreover, it has been commented that al-Zarqawi is a Jordanian, but the Arabic accent in the video was neither Iraqi dialect nor Jordanian dialect, rather it was of foreign origin.

It is noteworthy to bear in mind that US media claimed in 2001 that al-Zarqawi lost a leg, and was believed to have been fitted with an artificial leg. Yet, as viewers of the video tape are aware, none of the men seem to have any artificial limbs.

The Russian analyst continues to point out that the victim is exceptionally still throughout the video clip and does not resist his execution, even whilst he is being decapitated; additionally, his audible screams seem to be out of sync with the beheading. What's more astounding is the gruesome but clinical observation that during the decapitation, very little blood is ejected from the neck artery. The head is held high, but no blood is seen dripping from it. One surgeon and forensic expert has stated that cutting the neck, a vital part of the blood circulatory system, would result in at least a foot long geyser of blood dispersed in the surrounding environment. There is no evidence of any of that in the video clip.

What is clear is that the coalition authorities have used this video footage as evidence of the savagery of the enemy, and as an example of the nature of the people the coalition is fighting. It cannot be ignored that this claim comes at a time when the coalition is facing unprecedented criticism for its own barbarism in the treatment of captured civilians. However, the lack of any independent analysis of the video in the western media has meant that its questionable content has been presented as absolute fact, and has had the effect of numbing some of the furore against the actions of coalition atrocities in Iraq at least within the western audiences.