The Islamic State militant group on Sunday claimed to have beheaded American hostage Peter Kassig by putting out a new grisly video showing a masked man with a decapitated head covered in blood lying at his feet.
“This is Peter Edward Kassig, a US citizen, of your country; Peter who fought against the Muslims in Iraq, while serving as a soldier,” says the militant, speaking English in a British accent, towards the end of the 16-minute video.
A 26-year-old former US Army Ranger, Kassig was on a humanitarian mission to Syria when he was captured by the ISIS militants in October 1, 2013. During his captivity, Kassig embraced Islam, assuming the first name of Abdul-Rahman. The US intelligence community was on Sunday trying to determine the authenticity of the ISIS video that also appeared to show the beheading of about 18 Syrian soldiers.
“If confirmed, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American aid worker and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends,” a spokesperson of the National Security Council said in a statement.
The video surfaced just after President Barack Obama departed for home after attending the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. Using abusive language for Obama, the masked militant in the video says: “Today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers.”
“You claim to have withdrawn from Iraq four years ago. Here you are: you have not withdrawn. Rather, you hid some of your forces behind your proxies,” says the militant, adding: “Here we are, burying the first American crusader in Dabiq (a small town in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo), eagerly waiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive.”
If confirmed, Kassig’s beheading would be the fifth such gruesome killing by ISIS of its western hostages, with two of the earlier victims having been American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Allan Henning.
Unlike the earlier ISIS videos, the latest one does not show the hostage alive before the purported execution.
Kassig’s parents, based in Indiana, said in a statement that they were awaiting confirmation from the US Government. “The family respectfully asks that the news media avoid playing into the hostage takers’ hands and refrain from publishing or broadcasting photographs or video distributed by the hostage takers,” they said.
“We prefer our son is written about and remembered for his important work and the love he shared with friends and family, not in the manner the hostage takers would use to manipulate Americans and further their cause,” they said.
Kassig had formed the aid organisation, called Special Emergency Response and Assistance (SERA) in Turkey to provide aid and assistance to Syrian refugees. He began delivering food and medical supplies to Syrian refugee camps in 2012.
In a letter that he had written to his parents, Kassig had said: “I am obviously pretty scared to die but the hardest part is not knowing, wondering, hoping, and wondering if I should even hope at all….I am very sad that all this has happened and for what all of you back home are going through. If I do die, I figure that at least you and I can seek refuge and comfort in knowing that I went out as a result of trying to alleviate suffering and helping those in need.”