“The slaughter of that American [Nicholas Berg] under the slogan ‘Allah Akhbar.’ You know, in schools today … 6-and 7-year-old children are shown how to slaughter, and the children have to shout ‘Allah Akhbar.’ There are thousands of terrified children … who cannot sleep at night. … Can anything good come out of this generation? Murder has become our folklore.”

Hisham Al-Iqabi, Al Mustakillah TV
June 9, 2004

Since the war on terror began, there has been a proliferation of jihadi and Islamist Web sites. In addition to sharing messages, as well as the latest speeches, sermons, and fatwas by Al Qaeda and Islamist religious figures, the sites contain what could be best described as “Jihadi porn.”

Jihadi porn includes footage of the brutal killings of Westerners taken hostage by Islamist terrorists in places such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, and Pakistan. These hostages are often beheaded or shot in the back after being tortured. The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes this “pornography of violence” as “the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick, intense emotional reaction.”

A new era for Islamist terrorists was heralded in January 2002 when a member of Al Qaeda took a knife and tore off the head of a Wall Street Journal writer, Daniel Pearl, in Karachi, Pakistan. This horrific episode was filmed and put on the Internet, and countless Web sites posted it soon after.

Nicholas Berg, a 26-year-old American who went to Iraq to help build the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, was beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in May 2004. His gruesome murder also was filmed and posted on many Islamist Web sites, and the video soon became popular jihadi porn for the demented individuals who frequent such sites.

Paul Johnson Jr., who worked for Lockheed Martin in Saudi Arabia, was next. His beheading was posted on the Internet, as were images showing his severed head being held in one of his murderers’ hands. After the images were released, the Al Qaeda magazine Sawt al-Jihad published an article, titled “A Letter to the Wife of the Slain Paul Johnson From the Wife of One of the Martyrs,” that warned: “We are just getting started, and the corpse of your husband shall be followed by mountains of corpses of his countrymen.”

Other Americans whose beheadings were filmed and posted online include an engineer from Georgia, Jack Hensley, shown in a September 2004 video; a Michigan contractor, Eugene Armstrong, shown in a September 2004 video, and an Illinois contractor, Robert Jacob, whose beheading in Riyadh appeared in a June 2004 video.

Last week, two American soldiers became the latest American beheading victims. According to the Iraqi Defense Ministry, Private First Class Thomas Tucker and Private First Class Kristian Menchaca were reportedly “killed in a barbaric way,” “slaughtered,” and tortured to death, and their bodies were so mutilated that DNA tests are being performed to help identify their remains. So far no video of the killings has appeared.

Footage of the killing this past Sunday of four Russian diplomats kidnapped in Iraq, however, has appeared on the Internet. Other Westerners and Asians whose beheadings became jihadi porn include Ken Bigley, a British civil engineer who was shown in an October 2004 video; an Italian photographer, Salvatore Santoro, shown in a December 2004 video; a Japanese contractor, Akihiko Saito, shown in a May 2005 video, and a Korean translator, Kim Sun-il, shown in a December 2004 video.

Muslims also have been beheaded by their co-religionists, especially in Iraq. Notable examples include Egyptian and Algerian envoys in July 2005 videos; a Lebanese businessman, Badri Ghazi Abu Hamzah, in a January 2005 video; Turkish truck drivers and contractors in October 2004, and many other Iraqis.

The widely popular Iraqi TV terrorist confession series on Al-Iraqiya and Al-Fayhaa TV often focuses on beheadings. Notable examples include a February 23, 2005, episode featuring a captured Iraqi terrorist, Shihab Al-Sab’awi, who detailed how Syrian intelligence officials in Syria taught him to murder and behead; a March 30, 2005, episode with a captured Iraqi terrorist, Omar Allawi, who admitted he was paid $200 to film beheadings, and a April 21, 2005, episode with a captured Iraqi terrorist, Adnan Elias, who confessed to slaughtering hostages by pulling “the guts” out of their stomachs.

Those who do the beheading, and those who watch them online, share the same beliefs as the September 11 hijackers and those who send suicide bombers to attack cafes, churches, buses, and schools. As the war on terror continues, it should be remembered whom we are up against.

Mr. Stalinsky is the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.