Maragaret Hassan believed dead

The inevitable has happened. Initial reports of the murder of Maragaret Hassan, the British national/long-time resident of Iraq, are beginning to trickle in. A video has surfaced on Al Jazeera showing Hassan being shot. If confirmed, she would be the first foreign woman to be executed by the insurgents in Iraq.

A few thoughts:

• Strange that they would shoot her, and not behead her, as they have done others.
• Why did they wait until after the American elections? Is it presumptuous to assume that they would be cognizant of the American political calendar? Am I a horrible person for wondering how this would have influenced the election had she been murdered two weeks ago?

With such a "strong electoral mandate", I doubt very much that the Bush administration is going to react to this murder at all.