Mutiny? Dissension in the Ranks?

Yes - but it's not the story you're thinking. I guess the American papers are too busy with upcoming elections and other matters to report the real news from Iraq today. Here's our third in a row from a British media source:

Up to 20 people suspected of taking part in an operation to free the British hostage Ken Bigley have been murdered in a purge of the terrorist group headed by Iraq?s most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it was claimed yesterday.

A senior Iraqi resistance source in al-Zarqawi?s stronghold of Falluja said two Syrian guards had helped the 62-year-old Liverpool-born engineer to escape after he was held at a mosque on the edge of the city.

Their car was halted for routine checks by insurgents with links to al-Zarqawi?s Tawhid and Jihad group before they could reach the safety of an area under American control.

According to the resistance source the Iraqis recognised Bigley, who was disguised in Arab dress.

Al-Zarqawi is said to have been incensed that his group had been compromised and ordered the insurgents to behead Bigley.

Not a "good news" story by any means, but certainly fissures in the bond holding the Zarqawi group together are worth noting. There are hints that some amongst the mujahadeen may have found a motivation stronger than paradise with virgins - but don't think for a minute their motives were pure:

The details emerged a week after a Saudi described as a spokesman for Tawhid and Jihad claimed the guards had received a large sum of money from British intelligence.

A western military intelligence source said MI6 had paid a network of local Iraqis for information in the hunt for Bigley, but insisted that the principal aim had been to kill or capture al-Zarqawi.

And, in a shadowy guest appearance:

Much of the secret information-gathering work against al-Zarqawi is being co- ordinated by the Iraq Survey Group, whose intelligence experts were originally focused on the vain search for weapons of mass destruction.

The group is using agents seconded from the CIA and MI6, while the main force on the ground involved in raids on militant hideouts is the US 10th Mountain Division.

The bottom line being that we are making inroads from several directions, and there's good reason for Zarqawi's band to sleep a bit less peacefully these days, as "paradise" looms ever closer.