Family says hostage's body found in Iraq
CIA: Militant leader's voice heard on video in earlier slaying
 |  The Hensley family's 1993 Christmas photograph, provided by Jack Hensley's brother, Ty. |
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|  VIDEO |
 CNN's Walter Rodgers on the apparent killing of Jack Hensley.
 President Bush urges more international support for Iraq.
 Pati Hensley pleads for the release of her husband, Jack.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. officials have positively identified the body of a second American beheaded this week by insurgents in Iraq, the man's family said Wednesday.
Officials notified the family of Jack Hensley on Wednesday that a headless body found by Iraqi police was his.
Hensley, a resident of Marietta, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, would have turned 49 Wednesday, the family said.
A group loyal to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi posted a message Tuesday on an Islamist Web site saying Hensley had been killed.
The news came a day after the same Web site featured video that showed the beheading of Hensley's American colleague, Eugene "Jack" Armstrong, 52.
Armstrong and Hensley were kidnapped last week with Briton Kenneth Bigley, 62, in Baghdad. The men were working on Iraqi reconstruction projects for Gulf Supplies and Commercial Services, a United Arab Emirates-based company.
Hensley's brother Ty told CNN's "American Morning" that he wanted "to let the world know who Jack Hensley was."
"His story will be out for a day or two, but the pain is going to be suffered for generations in my family," he said, describing his brother as "an extraordinarily innocent man" who became friends with the Iraqis with whom he worked.
"I've received so many e-mails from Iraqi folks that he worked with. They are devastated."
Hensley's wife, Pati, had made repeated pleas for her husband's life and the lives of his two colleagues.
"These were three gentlemen who had absolutely no agenda other than to enrich the lives of the people they were there to help, and to take their lives would serve no real purpose," she said Monday.
In its Web posting Tuesday, the Unification and Jihad group, believed to be led by al-Zarqawi, had a stern message for President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"The Muslim blood is not water, and the honor of Muslim women won't go to waste. Bush, eat your heart out, and Blair, may you cry with tears of blood. God is great. Glory be to him, his prophet and the faithful," the message said.
The group has said it also beheaded U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il and two Bulgarian hostages.
The captors have demanded the release of female prisoners held by the U.S. military in two Iraqi prisons.
The Iraqi Council of Ministers plans to release one of two female prisoners "on bail" from U.S. custody but did not say whether it was responding to the recent demands, an Iraqi Ministry of Justice spokesman said.
However, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said that neither prisoner held by U.S. authorities would be released imminently, according to Reuters.
Earlier, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the deputy commander for detainee operations in Iraq, said the status of Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azawi -- as well as the second female Iraqi prisoner -- remains under review.
The two women are said to have been involved in deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programs. Taha is known as "Dr. Germ," and Dr. Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash has been nicknamed "Mrs. Anthrax." (Full story)
U.S. officials have said they are not holding any women in prisons in Iraq, only the two "high-value detainees." One official said that 45 women have been held in Abu Ghraib prison since July 2003 but that all have been released.
The al-Zarqawi group said it killed Hensley after a 24-hour deadline passed without its demands being met. It said the Web site soon would post the video of the killing.
"Thank God, the lions of the Tawhid and Jihad have slaughtered the second American hostage at the expiration of the set deadline," the message said. "The British hostage will face the same fate unless the British government does what's necessary to free him."
Before the report of the second killing, Bush, meeting Tuesday with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said, "We all stand in solidarity with the [remaining] American that is now being held captive."
Allawi, sitting next to Bush, said, "The barbaric action of yesterday is really unbelievable."
After analysis of Monday's beheading video, a CIA official said there is "high confidence" the voice on the tape is al-Zarqawi's. The militant has ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
The CIA routinely conducts a technical analysis of tapes made public by terrorists, comparing voices with other samples known to be of those in question.
The voice on the recent tape matches that of al-Zarqawi on other recordings, the official said.
In London, Bigley's brother, Philip Bigley, has asked Blair to take action.
"We feel absolutely helpless," Philip Bigley said.
"We do not have the power to save Ken's life. ... The only person we can now beg to help us is the prime minister. Who else can we ask? There is nobody," he said.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has spoken with the Bigley family a few times, a spokesman in the British Foreign Office said, declining to go into details.
Asked about the family's plea for British intervention, the spokesman said that "the government would not change its stance. We do not negotiate with terrorists." The United States has the same policy.
CNN's Caroline Faraj, Thaira al-Hilli, Bassem Muhy, Faris Qasira and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
