BEIRUT — The Islamic State group released a video Sunday of a masked, black-clad militant standing over a severed head it claimed is American aid worker Peter Kassig, a former Army Ranger, as well as the mass beheadings of a dozen Syrian soldiers.
The White House confirmed the authenticity of the video. In a statement issued as he flew back to Washington after a trip to the Asia Pacific region, President Barack Obama said the group “revels in the slaughter of innocents, including Muslims, and is bent only on sowing death and destruction.”
With Kassig’s death, the Islamic State group has killed five Westerners it was holding. Britons David Haines, a former Air Force engineer, and Alan Henning, a taxi driver from northwest England, were beheaded, as was U.S. reporter James Foley and American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff.
Unlike previous videos of slain Western hostages, the footage released Sunday did not show the purported decapitation of the American or the moments leading up to his death.