ISIS boldly give location for beheading of Peter Kassig.
ISIS militants fighting in Iraq and Syria claimed in a video posted online on Sunday that they had beheaded American hostage Peter Kassig.
Peter Kassig, 26, a former US soldier was captured in Syria in October last year while providing medical training and humanitarian aid to victims of the country’s conflict. He had converted to Islam during his captivity and taken the name Abdul-Rahman. He was originally shown at the end of a video released in October showing the murder of the British aid worker Alan Henning.
The video did not show the beheading but showed a masked man standing with a decapitated head covered in blood lying at his feet. Speaking in English in a British accent, a man, believed to be “Jihadi John” says: “This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen.”
Whilst the authenticity of the footage, which appeared on a jihadist website and on Twitter feeds used by Islamic State has not been confirmed by US government sources, according to Global Risk Awareness, it is that of Peter Kassig being murdered.
The video also shows a number of other people, thought to be Syrian Army and Airforce personnel being beheaded is a ritualistic way with ISIS fighters in a line behind each of their victims as knives are individually handed out.
The video shows for the first time the location of the beheading, Dabiq town north of Aleppo north. This is significant as Dabiq according to Islam is the location of the end of the world and a final historical confrontation between good and evil.
In the video the individual thought to be “Jihadi John” is addressing President Obama saying American soldiers will be next. Of note his face is covered more than in previous videos suggesting an attempt to make it more difficult to confirm his identity through facial feature recognition analysis.
ISIS use of horrific graphic displays of barbarism is designed to suggest a greater influence and control than they actually have. They see one of the most important weapons in their arsenal to convey their terror as the use of social media as part of their influence operations. Comparing their psychological operations capabilities to those of NATO, the UK and the US they are as sophisticated.
The detail for this article has been provided by the analytical teams at Global Risk Awareness.
