Fate sealed?

Having lived in London UK for a while now I was following the news related to Kenneth Bigley closely. The 62-year-old engineer's family confirmed his death on Friday after a video was released showing six hooded, armed men standing behind Mr Bigley, who was on his knees pleading for the umpteenth time for his life.One of the six men behind him spoke in Arabic for a minute and said the group would carry out "the sentence of execution against this hostage" because the British government "did not meet our demand" to release Iraqi women detained by the US-led command in Iraq. He then took a knife from his belt and cut off Mr Bigley's head as three other militants held him down. Despite the efforts of each and everyone involved in pleading for his release, from the Bigley family to Col Gadaffi at each end of the spectrum, the kidnappers showed no mercy and proved they are not humane. This Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Jordanian militant Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi took Mr Bigley hostage along with his two American colleagues Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley on 16 September.
After a life of travelling around the globe, Ken Bigley had planned on Iraq being his last posting before settling down with his wife for good. However, guess this was not meant to be as these militants beheaded the Americans the following week after their capture and kept Ken Bigley hostage for more than 3 weeks after which he was beheaded at the hands of the same captors, despite a high profile emotional campaign to secure his release. Yes its evident that he paid dearly for the noble cause of working in Iraq and trying to help humanity. I hope his soul rests in peace. Though his suffering is now over, guess the suffering of his family will go on for a long time to come.

On previous occasions, I was one who was pretty neutral to the whole Iraq war issue, but after this I feel absolutely sickened n outraged by the cold-blooded murders that have taken place in the last couple of weeks where slaughtering and beheading people seems as easy as cutting vegetables. Though every foreigner must realise the danger involved in working in Iraq, the gruesomeness of this situation is beyond expression. I don’t really care what the kidnappers' motives were, one thing is for sure - killing innocent people brutally and throwing their families into a nightmare like this one is never ever justifiable. This is definately not Islam and I wish that those who profess the Muslim faith would take even greater strides in condemning these actions. It appears also that the issue is being used politically to attack Tony Blaire. I am no fan of Mr Blaire but Im sure that he would have done all he could to save Ken Bigley. At the end of the day, let's hope over few fanatically crazy men there is no backlash against Muslims in general as their faith had nothing to do with any of this.
My thoughts and deepest sympathy go out to Ken’s family, specially his 86 year old mother and also to the families of all those killed earlier. May God give them the strength to go through this ordeal!