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ISIS Beheads U.S. Aid Worker

U.S. government confirms the death.

On Sunday, ISIS released a video showing decapitated U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig. A U.S. official confirmed the video’s authenticity. The beheading is not seen in the 16-minute long video, but a masked militant dressed in black holds Kassig’s severed head. The militant speaks with a British accent and appears to be the same one in the four other ISIS videos showing the murders of American and British hostages over the past four months. “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,” said the militant in the video. Kassig served in Iraq before being honorably discharged for medical reasons in 2007. He converted to Islam—adopting the name Abdul-Rahman—and founded a charity to help provide food and medical supplies to Syrian refugees. He was captured by ISIS in October 2013. The Kassig family has asked the news media to “avoid playing into the hostage takers’ hands and refrain from publishing or broadcasting photographs or video distributed by the hostage takers,” it said in a statement. “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.”