Alan Henning, a British aid worker who had been abducted by the Islamic State, has reportedly been beheaded by the militant jihadist group, according to the Associated Press.
The video, reportedly released Friday, shows the jihadi beheader bringing forward American citizen Peter Kassig and threatening to kill him should the U.S. continue its involvement in Syria and Iraq.
Henning was abducted in December after transporting an aid convoy into Syria. Nicknamed “Gadget,” he has been described as a “kind and funny” man who had traveled into a dangerous area in order to help those less fortunate.
His wife Barbara called upon the radical Islamist group to release her husband earlier this week. Henning’s wife said that he was in the country simply to work “with Muslims to help the most vulnerable within Syria… He went to Syria to help his Muslim friends.” She added, “We are at a loss why those Islamic State cannot open their hearts and mind to the facts surrounding Alan’s imprisonment and why they continue to threaten his life.”
The masked english-speaking IS militant said into the camera: “Obama, you have started your aerial bombardment of Shams (Syria), which keeps on striking our people, so it is only right that we continue to strike the neck of your people.”
The beheading of Alan Henning is the fourth such video of its kind released by the Islamic State. Americans James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines previously suffered the same fate.
Peter Kassig, who is the man threatened as the next potential beheading victim, is a former U.S. Army Ranger from Indianapolis. Kassig was deployed to Iraq in 2007 and then afterwards went on a humanitarian mission to help refugees from the Syrian civil war in a Lebanese hospital. Kassig is said to have disappeared over a year ago while in Syria.
Kassig said in a 2012 interview with CNN that he traveled to the Middle East to help the victims of the Syrian civil war. Kassig said in the interview: “We each get one life and that’s it. The way I saw it, I didn’t have a choice. This is what I was put here to do. I guess I am just a hopeless romantic, and I am an idealist, and I believe in hopeless causes.”