ISIL Claims Another American Beheaded

16 Nov, 2014

Islamic State militants said in a video on Sunday they had beheaded American hostage Peter Kassig and warned the United States they would kill other U.S. citizens “on your streets.”

The announcement of Kassig’s death, in what would be the fifth such killing of a Western captive by the group, formed part of a 15-minute video posted online in which Islamic State showed the beheadings of at least 14 men it said were pilots and officers loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The New York Times said intelligence agencies had received indications in recent days that Kassig had been killed by Islamic State. It cited a senior U.S. official as saying that after studying the video, analysts were increasingly convinced that it was authentic and that Kassig, who was captured more than a year ago in Syria, was dead.

President Barack Obama was informed of the video as he returned to the United States from the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia.

The video did not show the beheading of Kassig, an aid worker who previously had served in the U.S. Army, but showed a masked man standing with a decapitated head covered in blood at his feet. Speaking in English in a British accent, the man says: “This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen.”

The video appeared on a jihadist website and on Twitter feeds used by Islamic State.

Kassig’s parents, Ed and Paula Kassig, issued a statement saying: “We prefer our son is … 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.”

The man in the video spoke with the same southern British accent as the killer of previous hostages, dubbed “Jihadi John” by British media. He was believed to have been wounded in an air attack on an IS leaders’ meeting in Iraq near the Syrian border earlier this month, some media reports have said.

“To Obama, the dog of Rome, today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers,” a masked militant says, predicting Washington would send more troops to the region to fight Islamic State.

“And with Allah’s permission … the Islamic State will soon … begin to slaughter your people in your streets.”

Kassig, 26, from Indiana, is also known as Abdul-Rahman, a name he took after converting to Islam in captivity. His parents have said through a spokesperson their son was taken captive on his way to the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor on Oct. 1, 2013.

Kassig was doing humanitarian work through Special Emergency Response and Assistance, an organization he founded in 2012 to help Syrian refugees, the family has said.

Islamic State has previously killed U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.

Reuters 

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