Insurgent Video Shows Slain U.S. Pilot

The posting Thursday also blamed the U.S. President George W. Bush for the pilot's death and for pushing "thousands of American soldiers to the incinerator in Iraq."

Video: Insurgents Post Footage of Slain U.S. Pilot

The 11 minutes 30 seconds video, with English subtitles, was first obtained by the IntelCenter monitoring group in suburban Washington. The footage bears the insignia of the Islamic State of Iraq and its al-Furqan media production wing.

Titled "The Missing," it shows the I.D. card photograph of U.S. Air Force pilot Maj. Troy L. Gilbert whose F-16CG crashed Nov. 27, 2006, some 32 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

It also shows the pilot's body, mostly intact and in U.S. air force uniform, laid out on a plastic sheet, with the head covered. It was not clear if the body was filmed at the wreckage site or elsewhere outdoors.

The U.S. military initially listed Gilbert as missing but later confirmed his death.

U.S. forces who investigated the crash have said insurgents reached the site before American forces could. At the time, video footage obtained by Associated Press Television News showed what appeared to be the wreckage of his plane in a field and a tangled parachute nearby.

Ben Venzke, with the IntelCenter, later said the monitors believe the body and aircraft in the militant video were of the U.S. pilot.

"They went to an extra effort to make the video accessible to Americans and the English-speaking world," Venzke said, referring to the video's English subtitles. "It's essentially a propaganda piece and criticism of U.S. involvement in Iraq."

The video, which was posted on Web sites commonly used by Islamic militants, also contained a brief message to Americans.

"Oh, people of America, it was decreed by Allah that the pilot whose aircraft was shot down by The Islamic Government be Gilbert," it said, and asks: "why was Gilbert killed? And who is it that pushed thousands of American soldiers to the incinerator in Iraq?"

"It is your president, Bush the half-wit. The one who deceived you regarding the war in Iraq," it said.

The video also contained three brief clips which were likely old - an audio said to be of Osama bin Laden, a video of Abu Yahia al-Libi, the al-Qaida commander who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan, and an audio clip of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who heads the Islamic State in Iraq.

There is also various footage of destruction scenes in Iraq, as well as close-up of infant bodies lifted out of debris.

When Gilbert's death was announced, U.S. Air Force declined to say whether his body had been recovered, saying only that some remains had been found. Those remains likely enabled Gilbert's subsequent identification.

Gilbert was assigned to the 309th Fighter Squadron. He is survived by wife and five children, who live outside Phoenix, Arizona.

At the time of the crash, a different militant posting on the Internet had claimed that the al-Qaida umbrella group Islamic State of Iraq had captured the pilot alive but gave no proof. The umbrella groups several Iraqi insurgent organizations, including al-Qaida in Iraq.

In March, al-Furqan posted a statement on an Islamic Web site commonly used by militants, saying a video about the killed American pilot would be "coming soon" and that it would "greatly embarrass the U.S. command."

Venzke said it was not clear why so long had passed between the March announcement and the video's posting on Thursday.