17 November 2014 - US aid worker killed by ISIS
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President Obama: Kassig killing is 'an act of pure evil'
Staff (The Chicago Tribune)
U.S. aid worker and Indiana native Peter Kassig, beheaded by Islamic State militants who captured him in Syria last year, was remembered on Sunday for his courageous devotion to helping people whose lives were upended by civil war.
President Barack Obama confirmed Kassig's death after U.S. government agencies authenticated a video posted online of a masked man standing over the decapitated head of the 26-year-old medic and former U.S. Army Ranger.
Kassig "was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity," said the president, who offered his condolences to the relief worker's family.
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Confirmed
Martin Chulov (The Guardian)
A desperate two-month campaign by the parents of American hostage Peter Kassig failed after a video showing his beheading was released by Islamic State (Isis) militants.
A statement from US president Barack Obama on Sunday night confirmed that Kassig had been killed after Isis released the video showing the black-clad British executioner thought to have murdered four other western hostages standing over a severed head. Obama offered prayers and condolences to Kassig’s family and said their son “was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity.”
The Isis video was uploaded after an impassioned campaign by the 26-year-old’s parents for Isis to spare their son, who recently became known as Abdul-Rahman Kassig after he converted to Islam. The family did not immediately acknowledge Kassig’s death. Instead they urged that the 16-minute video should not be disseminated to deny his captors “a chance to further their cause”. Friends of Kassig said they had little doubt he had been killed.
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Reactions
Larry Copeland (USA Today)
Indianapolis reacted with grief and anger over the Islamic State killing of Peter Kassig, the American aid worker who first went to the Middle East as a soldier, then as a student and finally as a humanitarian.
Kassig, 26, was captured Oct. 1, 2013, during an aid mission to Deir Ezzour, Syria. His parents, Ed and Paula Kassig, learned through a friend that he had been taken hostage but kept silent for more than a year at the insistence of his captors, who threatened to kill him if they went public.
He converted to Islam and took the name Abdul-Rahman while in captivity. His family pleaded for his life, stressing his humanitarianism and conversion to Islam in rallies and interviews in Indiana and Lebanon. His mother also used Twitter in an effort to contact his captors directly.
On Sunday, Kassig's parents issued a statement: "We are aware of the news reports being circulated about our treasured son and are waiting for confirmation from the government as to the authenticity of these reports," they said.
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Video
David Usborne (Think Progress)
The video that appeared on Sunday confirmed to show the head of the American aid worker Peter Kassig at the feet of a hooded killer of Isis is at once similar and dissimilar to the tapes we have seen before announcing the killing of Western hostages. Common to all of them is their savagery.
Mr Kassig, who fought in Iraq before forming his own humanitarian group ferrying emergency supplies to victims of the Syrian war from a base in Turkey, appeared at the end of the last tape, which, on 3 October, confirmed the death of the British aid worker Alan Henning. Mr Kassig was next in line, it warned. Until then only the US authorities and his family had known he had been taken captive.
Such was the outrage at the murder of Mr Henning there was some notion that those responsible would reconsider their strategy. His was the fourth of the videos, each showing the murder of one hostage and announcing the next in line to meet their end. Before Mr Henning, the world had learnt of the killing of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and a British aid worker, David Haine.
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"17 November 2014 - US aid worker killed by ISIS", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), novembre 2014. Consulté le 23/04/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2014/17-november-2014-us-aid-worker-killed-by-isis