Islamic State says U.S. hostage killed in Syria
Islamic
State says U.S. hostage killed in Syria
BEIRUT Fri
Feb 6, 2015 2:28pm EST
1 of 2. Kayla Mueller in an undated photo.
Credit: Reuters/Courtesy Mueller family
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(Reuters) - The Islamic State militant group said on Friday that an
American woman hostage it was holding in Syria had been killed when Jordanian fighter jets bombed a building where she
was being held, the SITE monitoring group said.
In Washington, U.S. officials said they could not confirm that the
woman, who has been identified as 26-year-old aid worker Kayla Mueller of
Prescott, Arizona, had been killed.
Mueller was the last-known American hostage held by Islamic State, which
controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq and has executed five British and
American aid workers and journalists in recent months.
The group's latest claim comes just days after it released a video on
Tuesday appearing to show a captured Jordanian pilot, Mouath al-Kasaesbeh,
being burned alive in a cage. Jordan immediately vowed to intensify military
action against Islamic State.
A representative in the United States of Mueller’s family said the
family had no information on Islamic State’s statement that she had been
killed.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters during a briefing
in Washington, "I cannot confirm those reports in any way."
The White House said it was "deeply concerned" over the report
but that it had not seen "any evidence that corroborates ISIL’s
claim," using an acronym for the group.
Islamic State, in a message monitored by SITE, said Mueller died when the
building in which she was being held outside Raqqa, a major stronghold of the
group, collapsed in a Jordanian air strike on Friday.
"The air assaults were continuous on the same location for more
than an hour," Islamic State said, according to SITE.
Reuters and other Western news organizations were aware that Mueller was
being held hostage but did not name her at the request of her family members,
who believed the militants would harm her if her case received publicity.
'WHERE IS THE WORLD?'
Mueller was taken hostage while leaving a hospital in the northern
Syrian city of Aleppo in August 2013. She had a long record of volunteering
abroad and was moved by the plight of civilians in Syria's civil war.
"For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal. (I
will not let this be) something we just accept," Mueller's local newspaper
The Daily Courier quoted her in 2013 as saying.
"When Syrians hear I'm an American, they ask, 'Where is the world?'
All I can do is cry with them, because I don't know," Mueller said.
She had worked for a Turkish aid organization on the Syrian border and
volunteered for schools and aid organizations abroad including in both the West
Bank and Israel as well as in Dharamsala,
India, where she taught English to Tibetan refugees.
Jordanian aircraft hit multiple targets in Syria on Thursday, including
an ammunitions depot and storage facilities. Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve
Warren estimated the Jordanians dropped a total of around 72 munitions on its
targets.
Jordan is a major U.S. ally in the fight against militant Islamist
groups, and hosted U.S. troops during operations that led to the invasion of
Iraq in 2003.
Hours after the release of the video showing the pilot burning to death,
Jordanian authorities executed two al Qaeda militants who had been imprisoned
on death row, including a woman who had tried to blow herself up in a suicide
bombing and whose release had been demanded by Islamic State.
Warren said the United States was also heavily involved in Thursday’s
operations in Syria, flying alongside Jordanian planes.
(Reporting by Mariam Karouny, Alistair Bell and Susan Heavey; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Eric Beech and Tom Brown)
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