Killing ordered by leader who admires eighth century warlord

Previous British victims of al Qaeda were aid worker Margaret Hassan and engineer Ken Bigley in Iraq.

Despite this being the first killing of its type in almost five years, it shows that the group has not diminished in its desire to strike at every opportunity.Today's execution was apparently carried out by a group calling itself al Qaeda in the Maghreb.

Based in Algeria, it has previously carried out terror attacks there as well as in Tunisia, Mauritania, Niger and Mali. Its leader in Mali and Nigeria is widely known as Abdelhamid Abu Zeid, although he has a series of aliases as leader of the al Qaeda branch's "Tariq Ibn Zaid" brigade. The name is a reference to an eight century Muslim warrior who led the conquest of southern Spain.

The 43-year-old Algerian-born militant has been named by the United States as a leader of terror operations - including previous mass kidnappings of tourists.

He first struck in 2003 when he led the kidnap of 32 tourists, most of them French, in Algeria, under the auspices of the Group Salafist for Preaching and Combat, an Islamist terror organisation which went on to merge with al Qaeda.

In June 2005, he led a unit of AQIM operatives in an attack on a Mauritanian military outpost that killed 15 soldiers and wounded at least another 15.

American intelligence alleges that, under the alias Hammadou, he established a camp for AQIM recruits in northern Mali that included training in combat techniques, making and defusing bombs, and guerilla tactics.

The terror chief was said to have taken part in direct negotiations with Niger government representatives about the kidnapped group's release.

AQIM has stepped up its attacks since becoming a fully fledged part of Osama bin Laden's terror network, a move described by his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri as a "blessed act".

It carried out three attacks east of Algiers in early June last year, including a bombing near a train station that killed a French citizen.

In February last year it kidnapped two Austrian tourists in Tunisia. They were subsequently freed. In April 2007, AQIM bombed both the Algerian prime minister's office and police facilities in Algiers.

The kidnappings in Mali of the Briton, the German and two Swiss citizens was in parallel with the seizure of two Canadian diplomats by another part of AQIM.

Beheading was last carried out on a British hostage when Ken Bigley, an engineer from Liverpool who was kidnapped in Baghdad in September 2004, was murdered.

Later that year Margaret Hassan, was also murdered by al Qaeda captors. after she appeared on a video pleading not to "die like Ken Bigley". Her body has never been found but it was widely believed that she was shot.