IS leader linked to beheadings killed

The US-led coalition against the Islamic State group said yesterday it killed a senior jihadist involved in the executions of an American aid worker and other Western hostages. Abu al-Umarayn was accused of involvement in the November 2014 beheading of Peter Kassig, a former US ranger who was doing volunteer humanitarian work when captured in 2013. “He was killed and more information will be available after a full assessment,” Sean Ryan, spokesman for the US-led coalition, said in a statement issued after the Sunday strikes.

“Al Umarayn had given indications of posing an imminent threat to coalition forces and he was involved in the killing of American citizen and former US Army Ranger, Peter Kassig,” he said. Ryan said the jihadist had also been involved in the execution of several other prisoners. It is the first time the coalition, which has been hunting down IS fighters in Iraq and Syria since 2014, has announced the killing of a jihadist leader linked to Kassig’s death.

At the time of the execution, IS released a video showing Kassig’s severed head but did not publish footage of the decapitation, as it had done for other hostages. Kassig founded a humanitarian organisation in 2012 that trained some 150 civilians to provide medical aid to people in Syria. His group also gave food, cooking supplies, clothing and medicine to the needy. He took the name Abdul Rahman after converting to Islam.

Before Kassig’s decapitation, which IS announced on November 16, four other hostages were executed by IS: - British aid worker Alan Henning (video released on October 3) - British aid worker David Haines (video released on September 13) - US journalist Steven Sotloff (video released on September 2) - US journalist James Foley (video released on August 19) Another hostage held at the time and whose execution was threatened was British journalist John Cantlie.

He later appeared in videos in which he uttered IS propaganda but, more than six years after his kidnapping, his fate remains unclear. The leader of the cell which was responsible for the executions and became known as “The Beatles” was believed to be Mohammed Emwazi, a British jihadist nicknamed “Jihadi John” who was killed in a drone strike in 2015.