Mass beheading video goads military action
THE world reacted with horror yesterday after Islamic State released its most graphic beheading video to date, showing the mass slaughter of hostages in Syria and culminating in apparent confirmation of the murder of Peter Kassig, an American aid worker.
The declaration that Kassig had become the fifth Western hostage to be beheaded on camera came at the end of a 16-minute recording, again featuring the jihadist with a London accent.
Analysts said the video, unusually graphic even by Isis’s standards, appeared designed to appal and provoke an even greater military reaction.
‘‘This is Peter Edward Kassig, a US citizen, of your country,’’ the masked British jihadist says at the end of the video, pointing his knife towards the camera during an address aimed at President Obama.
The American and British governments said they were working quickly 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,’’ said Bernadette Meehan, the National Security Council spokeswoman.
David Cameron said he was ‘‘horrified by the cold-blooded murder of Abdul-Rahman Kassig’’, using the name Kassig’s parents said he had taken when converting to Islam in captivity.
‘‘Isil have again shown their depravity,’’ he wrote on Twitter. Kassig’s parents, Ed and Paula, urged people not to distribute the video.
‘‘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 in a statement.
Kassig’s would be the fifth beheading of a Western hostage held by the militant group. Two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and two British aid workers, David Haines and Alan Henning, were murdered by the group.
Kassig, who was a United States army ranger in Iraq in 2007, moved to Lebanon and set up a charity providing medical aid to Syrian refugees. He was delivering medical supplies to displaced Syrians in the province of Deir al-Zour when he was snatched last October.
His family say that he converted to Islam of his own free will. Isis discovered Kassig’s army past while he was in captivity, according to a former hostage.
While he was in captivity, his parents received a letter in which he said he was suffering from stress and fear.
Yesterday’s video, in which his purported remains are seen, is different from those of previous victims. Kassig is not seen alive and does not deliver a final message.
The video also does not end with a threat to any other hostages, as previous ones have done. John Cantlie, a British journalist being held hostage, has been used in a number of Isis films explaining the group’s ideology.
The latest recording charts the rise of Isis from its beginnings as al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq. A map showing an Isis flag flying over its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria expands to show the locations of other militant groups that have pledged their allegiance.
The most gruesome and choreographed segment shows at least 16 men, purportedly captured Syrian soldiers, apparently of multiple different nationalities, from Westerners to Arabs to East Asians, being marched into the desert by militants. Each militant draws a knife theatrically before lining up behind their victims, who are shown in close-up before they are beheaded.
‘‘To Obama, the dog of Rome, today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers,’’ the jihadist says.
The film identifies the location of the execution, placing it in Dabiq, a town north of Aleppo with significance in jihadist ideology. According to the Hadith, an account of the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad, Dabiq will be the site of an epic battle between Muslims and Christians heralding the apocalypse. ‘‘Here we are burying the first American crusader in Dabiq, eagerly awaiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive,’’ the British jidhadist says.
Obama has ruled out sending ground troops to Syria, although 3100 military advisers are to be sent to Iraq to assist its military in driving out Isis.