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ISIS Video Purports to Prove Peter Kassig, a U.S. Aid Worker, Was Executed ISIS Video Purports to Prove Peter Kassig, a U.S. Aid Worker, Was Executed
(about 1 hour later)
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — The Islamic State released a video early Sunday showing a black-clad executioner standing over the severed head of what the group claims is an American aid worker, a former Army Ranger who disappeared over a year ago at a checkpoint in northern Syria while delivering medical supplies. GAZIANTEP, Turkey — The Islamic State released a video early Sunday showing a black-clad executioner standing over the severed head of what they claim is an American aid worker, a former Army Ranger who disappeared over a year ago at a checkpoint in northeastern Syria while delivering medical supplies.
The footage — which has not been independently verified — is significantly different from those of four other executions the militants have filmed. Unlike the deaths of James Foley and others, the actual killing of the former Ranger, Peter Kassig, is not shown. And he is not made to deliver a final message. The camera pans across the boots of the hooded killer. Between his feet is a decapitated head, blood smearing the cheek. The footage — which a senior United States official said the government thought was authentic but has not officially confirmed — is significantly different from the execution videos of four other Western hostages, whose televised deaths were carefully choreographed.
The British-accented fighter who has appeared in previous beheading videos, and who has been nicknamed Jihadi John by the British new media, says: “This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen of your country. Peter, who fought against the Muslims in Iraq while serving as a soldier under the American Army, doesn’t have much to say. His previous cellmates have already spoken on his behalf. But we say to you, Obama, you claim to have withdrawn from Iraq four years ago. We said to you then that you are liars.” Those videos were shot with multiple cameras from different vantage points in order to give the appearance of a professional production. By contrast, the footage of Mr. Kassig’s death is shot with a single camera and appears amateurish, with the harsh lighting obscuring the executioners’ visage.
While in the earlier videos, the hostage is seen kneeling in an orange jumpsuit and is forced to make a speech before the executioner lifts the knife to his throat, in the one released Sunday the moments leading up to Mr. Kassig’s death are not shown. The change in format – combined with the lower production quality of the clip – may suggest that the Islamic State is on the run, and unable to pull off the same cinematic production as before.
The camera pans across the boots of the hooded killer. Between his feet, you see a decapitated head, blood smearing the cheek.
“This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen of your country. Peter, who fought against the Muslims in Iraq while serving as a soldier under the American Army doesn’t have much to say. His previous cellmates have already spoken on his behalf,” says the British-accented fighter who appeared in the previous beheading videos and has been nicknamed Jihadi John by the British press. “You claim to have withdrawn from Iraq four years ago. We said to you then that you are liars.”
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said the United States intelligence community was aware of the video and was “working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity.”A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said the United States intelligence community was aware of the video and was “working as quickly as possible to determine its authenticity.”
“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,” the spokeswoman, Bernadette Meehan, said in a statement.“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,” the spokeswoman, Bernadette Meehan, said in a statement.
Mr. Kassig’s parents, Ed and Paula Kassig, posted a statement on their Facebook page saying that they were waiting for the government’s findings regarding the authenticity of the Islamic State’s video. They asked the news media not to publish or broadcast “photographs or video distributed by the hostage takers.” An Indianapolis native, Mr. Kassig turned to humanitarian work after a tour in Iraq in 2007, where he served as an Army Ranger. He was certified as an emergency medical technician, and in 2011, he returned to the battlefield – this time helping bandage the wounded in Libya, in the final days of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. By 2012, he moved to Beirut, where he founded a small aid group and initially used his savings to buy supplies – like diapers – which he distributed to the Syrian refugees who were flooding into Lebanon.
“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,” the statement said. In the summer of 2013, he relocated to Gaziantep, this city in southern Turkey roughly one hour from the Syrian border, and began making regular trips into Syria to offer medical care to the wounded. His friend Emma Beals – a freelance journalist – described in an article how Mr. Kassig helped care for a government sniper, despite the fact that the fighter had been taking shots at anyone who passed over the single bridge into the town. When the sniper was himself injured he was rushed to the hospital where Mr. Kassig worked in the city of Deir al-Zour. The medical team worked silently to amputate the man’s leg, even though some of the doctors had lost family members to the sniper.
Peter Kassig, 26, was based in Gaziantep, this city in southern Turkey roughly one hour from the Syrian border, where he ran a small aid group dedicated to helping victims of Syria’s civil war. He was abducted on Oct. 1, 2013, on his way to Deir al-Zour, Syria. It was to this same town that Mr. Kassig was headed in an ambulance loaded with medical supplies when he was abducted on Oct. 1, 2013. He was transferred late last year to a prison beneath the basement of the Children’s Hospital in Aleppo, and then to a network of jails in Raqqa, the capital of the extremist group’s self-declared caliphate, where he became one of at least 23 Western hostages held by the group. His cellmates included Mr. Foley and American freelance journalist Steven J. Sotloff, as well as British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, who were beheaded in roughly two-week increments starting this August.
Initially held separately, he was transferred late last year to a prison beneath the basement of the Children’s Hospital in Aleppo, and then to a network of jails in Raqqa, the capital of the extremist group’s self-declared caliphate. He was one of at least 23 Western hostages held by the group, and his cellmates included Mr. Foley and the American freelance journalist Steven J. Sotloff, who were beheaded in late summer. Each video appeared to be filmed in the same location, identified by analysts using geo-mapping as a hill outside the city of Raqqa. Each video was relatively short – under five minutes on average – and included a speech by the hostage, where he is forced to accuse his government for alleged crimes against Muslims as the masked killer stands by holding the knife.
The hostages — especially the Americans — were repeatedly tortured, including through waterboarding, an abuse meant to mirror the treatment of Muslim detainees in Iraq at C.I.A. “black sites,” where several members of the Islamic State are believed to have been held. By contrast, Mr. Kassig’s death appears in the final two minutes of a nearly 16-minute video, which traces the history of the Islamic State, from its origins in Iraq as a unit under the control of Osama bin Laden to its modern-day incarnation in the region straddling Iraq and Syria. In one extended sequence, they show a mass beheading of captured Syrian soldiers. Over the sound of Quranic chants, the handcuffed victims are shown being led out in a line, held by the scruffs of their necks. Each fighter is seen grabbing a knife from a bowl. Then the victims are forced to kneel. They are beheaded at the same moment.
The Americans were also repeatedly interrogated by their captors, who forced them to hand over the passwords to their Internet accounts. The militants scanned their emails, their Facebook timelines and their private chats for evidence of collusion with foreign governments. In the middle is Jihadi John. Just after killing his victim, he looks up. Through the slits in his black mask, the viewer can see his eyes. Defiantly, he stares at the camera.
A European hostage who was released after his government paid a ransom described the moment their captors discovered that Mr. Kassig was an Iraq war veteran: “One day, the guards burst in, and they said: ‘Peter?’ And he said, ‘Yes, sir,'” recalled the former hostage, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns for his safety. “And then the guard said, ‘Are you a soldier?'” The footage of Mr. Kassig’s head is markedly less professional and comes at the tail end of this footage – as if to force Western viewers to watch the horrific scenes that come before, said a terrorism expert, Jean-Charles Brisard, whose study on Bin Laden was published by the French National Assembly.
There was a pause. And then Mr. Kassig answered, “Yes, sir,” said the former prisoner. “This is why I am pretty sure that the real focus is not on Peter Kassig,” Mr. Brisard said. It is on the mass killing of Syrian soldiers and statements on the genesis of group – this is really the message and not Kassig.
A total of 15 of Mr. Kassig’s cellmates — all but one of them European — were released earlier this year after their governments, companies or families paid ransoms. The families of the American victims were initially told by American officials that they would be prosecuted if they tried to pay a ransom. “Obviously there was something that happened during the filming” of the Kassig execution,” Mr. Brisard said, adding, "We know that the past executions were filmed from multiple perspectives, so perhaps something happened here that prevented them from doing so.”
Mr. Foley’s parents and younger brother have since given television interviews expressing frustration at how the United States government handled Mr. Foley’s abduction, saying that the threat of prosecution caused them to lose valuable time — at the same moment that European countries were actively negotiating a dollar amount for their citizens who were prisoners. Mr. Brisard said that it is possible that Mr. Kassig resisted – and tried to oppose his executioner, which would have made the filming impossible. It could also suggest that the group is on the move and unable to carry out the same, open-air scenario as they did in Raqqa. The executioner states that the killing is taking place in Dabiq, a village in Aleppo province, which has symbolic significance because it is mentioned in Islamic scripture as the place where an epic battle occurred between Muslims and infidels.
Former hostages say that a majority of the prisoners converted to Islam, including Mr. Kassig, who took the name Abdul-Rahman. Most did so under duress after daily pressure from their guards, in the hope of being afforded better treatment. Former hostages interviewed after their release said that Mr. Kassig and Mr. Foley were among the most earnest in their conversion. The killer ends by saying, “Here we are burying the first American Crusader in Dabiq – eagerly waiting for the rest of your armies to arrive.”
In a letter to his parents smuggled out this summer by one of his cellmates, Mr. Kassig alluded to his conversion. “In terms of my faith, I pray every day, and I am not angry about my situation in that sense,” the letter said. “I am in a dogmatically complicated situation here, but I am at peace with my belief.” Former hostages held alongside Mr. Kassig described how he worried that his past as an Iraq war veteran might doom him. His record of service was quickly discovered by their extremist captors, who forced the hostages to hand over the passwords to their email and social media accounts, then scanned their emails, their Facebook timelines and their private chats for evidence of collusion with foreign governments.
His family confirmed that Mr. Kassig had converted after the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, identified him as the next to be killed. “One day, the guards burst in, and they said: ‘Peter?'” recalled one of Mr. Kassig’s cellmates, who was released for ransom earlier this year. “He said, ‘Yes, sir.’ And then the guard said, ‘Are you a soldier?'”
The footage purporting to be of Mr. Kassig’s severed head comes in the last moments of a 16-minute video tracing the history of the Islamic State, from its origins in Iraq as a unit under the control of Osama bin Laden to its modern-day incarnation in the region straddling Iraq and Syria. The black-hooded killer is shown conducting a mass beheading of captured Syrian soldiers, who are led out by the scruffs of their necks. Each fighter is shown grabbing a knife from a bowl. Then the victims are forced to kneel. They are beheaded at the same moment. There was a pause. And then Mr. Kassig answered, “Yes, sir,” said the former hostage, who like others requested anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter.
In the middle is the man known as Jihadi John. Just after killing his victim, he looks up. Through the slits in his black mask, the viewer can see his eyes. Defiantly, he stares directly at the camera. In the months leading up to his death, Mr. Kassig seemed to know the end was near.
In Washington, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, said that if the authenticity of the video was confirmed, it “is a tragic reminder of the savagery of ISIS and the complexity of our challenge.” But he made a clear distinction between support for the government and army of Iraq, and the greater direct involvement in what he called the “charnel house” of Syria. In a letter to his parents smuggled out this summer, he describes his fear: “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,” he writes. “Just know I’m with you. Every stream, every lake, every field and river. In the woods and in the hills, in all the places you showed me. I love you.”
“We need to provide support to those that are fighting ISIS, and we can provide that support — logistics, training, intelligence, air cover,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” But, Mr. Durbin added, “It would be a serious mistake for us to make a commitment of land troops into these theaters.”