August 7-8, 2004: Al-Zarqawi Beheading Video Exposed as Hoax

A still from the fake beheading video. [Source: Associated Press]On August 7, 2004, a beheading video is broadcast on Arab television. Western news outlets immediately pick up the story. But the next day, Benjamin Vanderford, a video game designer living in San Francisco, reveals that he created the video. In the video, entitled, “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Slaughters an American,” Vanderford makes a short statement denouncing the US occupation of Iraq. Then a hand with a knife is seen cutting at a motionless man’s neck, but no militants are seen. He says he posted the one-minute video on an online file-sharing network in May, but it took several months before it got posted to a militant Islamist website where other beheading videos had appeared, and then news of it quickly spread. Vanderford says he put the video on the Internet “to just make a statement on these type of videos and how easily they can be faked.” He adds: “I see how it could be considered disrespectful. But I think people, if they look at it, will understand two other big issues it brings up. A small group of disgruntled people in Iraq or Saudi Arabia could just get more attention just by easily releasing something like I did on the Internet.” [Associated Press, 8/8/2004]