Islamic State Video Says U.K. Hostage Henning Beheaded

By Zaid Sabah

Islamic State militants posted a video showing the beheading of British hostage Alan Henning, according to SITE Intel, which monitors jihadist groups.
Henning was working for a charity delivering aid to Syria when he was seized in the country last December. He’s the latest foreign captive to be executed on video by Islamic State, the jihadist group that has declared a caliphate on territory it seized in Iraq and Syria.
Prime Minister David Cameron described Henning’s killing as a “brutal murder,” and said it “shows just how barbaric and repulsive these terrorists are.”
“We will do all we can to hunt down these
murderers and bring them to justice,” he said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday.
Islamic State says in the video that the next hostage to be executed will be Peter Kassig, an American aid worker, Bethesda, Maryland-based SITE Intel said on its Website.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, confirmed in a statement that Kassig was being held and said the U.S. has no reason to doubt the video’s authenticity.
Islamic State had warned in a Sept. 13 video that it would kill Henning. That video showed the execution of another U.K. citizen, aid worker David Haines.
Britain last week joined the U.S.-led coalition of European and Arab allies who are carrying out military strikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria. Islamic State militants and its sympathizers have killed citizens of the U.K., France and the U.S., calling the executions a reprisal for the armed campaign against them.

Aid Convoy

The U.K. conducted its first airstrikes against the group in Iraq last week after lawmakers voted in favor of military action. It hasn’t participated in any attacks in Syria, and Cameron told parliament on Sept. 26 that he wasn’t immediately proposing to do so, because there’s no domestic political consensus on that part of the conflict.
While the strikes have halted Islamic State gains in some areas, the group has still advanced on the mostly Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria in recent days, and seized more territory in western Iraq, according to local officials.
Henning’s wife had urged his captors to release him, saying the former taxi driver had left his family and job to join a convoy that was carrying aid to “those most in need” in Syria, according to a letter released by Britain’s Foreign Office last month.
President Barack Obama said the U.S. “strongly condemns” the killing of Henning, and called his death “a great loss” for the Syrian people whose lives he had worked to improve.

Obama Statement

In a statement released by the White House, Obama said the U.S. would join the U.K. and other allies to bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of Henning, Haines and two other hostages -- American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff -- whose beheadings were also depicted in Islamic State videos.
The U.K.’s charity regulator has been investigating possible links between the organization Henning worked for and militant groups. There was no indication Henning was involved. The Daily Telegraph reported on Sept. 15 that he was kidnapped within half an hour of entering Syria.
Another British hostage, journalist John Cantlie, has appeared in a series of videos posted by Islamic State, criticizing the policy of the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East.