French national suspected to have been part of Kassig's beheading

French daily Le Figaro said Sunday on its website that French Interior Ministry Bernard Cazeneuve was studying the possibility of the presence of a French national among the Islamic State militants who beheaded US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.

US President Barack Obama confirmed Sunday the death of Kassig, calling his beheading at the hands of the Islamic State group "pure evil."

"Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity," Obama said in a statement released aboard Air Force One as he flew back to the United States from an Asia tour.

The Islamic State group on Sunday released a video showing the aid worker beheaded with "Jihadi John", the British-accented Islamic State militant apparently responsible for the beheading of western hostages, standing overhead.

"This is Peter Edward Kassig, a US citizen of your country," said a black-militant wearing a balaclava, the same outfit worn by the man who beheaded two American journalists and two British aid workers in earlier videos.

"Peter Edward Kassig, who fought in the American army in Iraq, doesn't have much to say," the masked executioner says.

It is unclear when the video was filmed as reports have surfaced that "Jihadi John" was injured in a US air strike. As such, the video may be intended to prove he is still alive.

"Here, we are burying the first American crusader in Dabiq, eagerly waiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive," the militant said.

Dabiq is the site of a major 16th century battle in what is now northern Syria that saw the Ottomans defeat the Mamluks and begin a major expansionist phase of an empire the IS group considers to have been the last caliphate.

The same video showed the gruesome simultaneous beheadings of at least 18 men described as Syrian military personnel, the latest in a series of mass executions and other atrocities carried out by IS.

"We prefer our son is written about and remembered for his important work and the love he shared with friends and family," Kassig's parents, Paula and Ed Kassig, said in a statement to Fox News, "not in the manner the hostage takers would use to manipulate Americans and further their cause."

Kassig, 26, was a former US Army soldier who served in Iraq then returned to the Middle East to found a relief organization. He is the fifth western hostage to be executed by IS.

Kassig was interviewed by Western media in 2012 before his disappearance and said that having left the army he felt compelled to return to the Middle East and find ways to help the war injured.

In October, his parents released a statement calling on IS to release him.

"Our son's journey culminated in him embracing Islam. Sadly, he was taken captive and is not free to continue his life's work serving the people of the region.

"We know that Syrians are suffering. We also believe violence is not the solution to the problems that trouble us all. There is so much beyond our control. We asked our government to change its actions, but like our son, we have no more control over the U.S government than you have over the break of dawn."

Kassig’s family said he was kidnapped while on a project for his relief organization, Sera, on 1 October last year, on his way to Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria.
'Jihadi John' reportedly injured in air strike

Meanwhile, the British government said it was investigating reports that "Jihadi John" had been injured in a US air strike.

The Foreign Office could not confirm reports published in the Mail on Sunday that the masked executioner, who has appeared in a series of grisly videos posted online, had been wounded while attending a meeting of IS leaders in an Iraqi town close to the Syrian border last week.

According to the paper, he was taken to hospital following the US-led attack on a bunker in Al Qaim, western Iraq, on November 8 that killed around 10 IS commanders and wounded 40 more.

The Mail reported that it was the same attack that injured elusive IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sparking initial rumors that he had been killed.

"Jihadi John", named after Beatle John Lennon due to his British background, is believed to be responsible for the murders of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Allan Henning.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, asked about the reports while at the G20 summit in Brisbane, said: "We should be in no doubt that I want 'Jihadi John' to face justice for the appalling acts that have been carried out in Syria, but I wouldn't make any comment on individual issues or strikes and the like, you wouldn't expect me to.

"I think the point though is clear, if people travel to Syria or Iraq in order to conduct terror operations against British people, British citizens, or people back here in Britain, then they are putting themselves in harm's way, they shouldn't be in any doubt about that."

Despite being a foreigner, the masked assassin, who goes by the nom de guerre Jalman Al-Britani, has become a leading figure in the Islamist group that swept across Syria and northern Iraq.

The Mail claimed that a nurse who treated some of those wounded in the attack said there was a man named Jalman on her list, referring to him as "the one who slaughtered the journalists".

The wounded men were then driven to the IS's Syrian stronghold of Raqa, according to the Mail's source.

British intelligence officers estimate that there are around 500 home-grown militants fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq, and Cameron announced plans this week to stop them returning to Britain for two years.



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