Berg's slayer linked to al-Qaida

WASHINGTON — The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is believed with "high probability" to have been the masked man who beheaded the 26-year-old American Nicholas Berg in a gruesome video clip posed on an Islamist Web site Tuesday, a Central Intelligence Agency official said on Thursday.

The CIA assessment, based on a technical analysis of the video, also identifies the voice on the video clip as believed with "high probability" to be that of Zarqawi, the official said. The Web site had identified Zarqawi as the man who carried out the beheading, but until Thursday, American government officials had expressed some skepticism about that claim. Zarqawi, who has links to al-Qaida, has previously been identified by U.S. officials as the person believed to be behind some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq. Zarqawi is also suspected in the killing of Laurence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan, in October 2002.

But the assessment that he personally beheaded Berg represents the most specific allegation of his direct involvement in a recent act of terrorism. In the video clip, the man now believed to be Zarqawi read a statement criticizing the killing as a response for the humiliation inflicted on Iraq prisoners by U.S. soldiers.

In the clip, Berg, of West Chester, Pa., was shown seated before a row of five masked men. After the reading of the statement, the tape showed the men pushing Berg to the floor. As he screamed, the man now believed to be Zaraqwai put a knife to Berg's neck as the men yelled "God is Great!"

The head was held up to the camera.

Berg's family has said he was in Iraq looking for a job. He spent some time in Iraqi custody during his stay but had not been heard from since April 9. His body was found on Saturday near an overpass in Baghdad. The apparent involvement of Zarqawi in the decapitation of Berg is chillingly reminiscent of the role that a senior al-Qaida official, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, played in the February 2002 decapitation of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Mohammed, who is now in American custody, is believed by American intelligence officials to have wielded the knife in the beheading of Pearl.