As the US intelligence agencies confirmed the authenticity of the ISIS beheading of American hostage Peter Kassig, President Barack Obama condemned the gruesome killing, calling it “an act of pure evil”.
“Abdul Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity,” Obama said in a statement, referring to Kassig by his newly adopted first name after embracing Islam during captivity in Syria.
He said Kassig’s life and deeds “stand in stark contrast to everything that ISIl represents”, adding: “While ISIl revels in the slaughter of innocents including Muslims, and is bent only on sowing death and destruction, Abdul-Rahman was a humanitarian who worked to save the lives of Syrians injured and dispossessed by the Syrian conflict.”
“ISIl’s actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own,” Obama said as he recalled Kassig’s treatment of Syrian refugees fleeing from the civil war through the aid group that he set up.
Kassig’s parents, based in Indiana, released a statement on how heartbroken they are to learn that their son “has lost his life as a result of his love for the Syrian people and his desire to ease their suffering”.
At the same time, Ed and Paula Kassig asked people not to focus on their son’s murder, but keep his legacy alive.